Category: Democratic Backsliding

Morales defeat lifts hopes for Latin American democracy

     

The blocking of Evo Morales’ desire to run for a fourth consecutive presidential term in Bolivia didn’t only put a stop to his creeping authoritarianism. It is also an encouraging… Read more »

Poll shows Uganda’s democracy has ‘stagnated, regressed’

     

\ Last Saturday, as Yoweri Museveni was declared president of Uganda for a fifth consecutive term, the military rolled armored cars down the streets of the capital, Kampala, and police surveillance helicopters… Read more »

‘Hybrid’ South Africa: poised between democracy & autocracy?

     

  A survey by Afrobarometer shows that growing dissatisfaction with the country’s leadership and government performance has spilled over into frustration with democracy in general, writes analyst Boniface Dulani: Looked… Read more »

Ten reasons Putinism is not sustainable

     

Columbia University analyst Mariya Snegovaya points to ten reasons why Putinism may not be nearly as “sustainable” as many think, Paul Goble writes for The Interpreter: Protest attitudes are growing… Read more »

Autocrats’ bag of tricks for staying in power

     

Excluding hereditary monarchies, there are close to 40 countries around the world in which the national leader has been in power for 10 or more years, writes Freedom House analyst… Read more »

Asia’s democratic regression fuels rise of Islamist militants

     

  Today, few people are touting democracy in Southeast Asia as an example of political freedoms, notes Council on Foreign Relations analyst Joshua Kurlantzick. In Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and… Read more »

Turkey’s Erdogan getting off democracy train?

     

Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.) presented itself as a Western, reformist, neo-liberal and secular party, and, as late as 2012, 16 EU… Read more »

Venezuela – too late to avoid catastrophe

     

  As markets brace themselves for the negative effects of the decline in oil prices, Venezuela will probably be the first big domino to fall, notes Ricardo Hausmann, the director… Read more »

Bleak prospects for Putinism – and Russian democracy

     

Russian President Vladimir Putin used to seem invincible. Today, he and his regime look enervated, confused, and desperate. Increasingly, both Russian and Western commentators suggest that Russia may be on… Read more »