Category: democratic erosion

Geopolitics after Covid-19: A pandemic turning point?

     

COVID-19 is deepening the “democratic recession,” Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute, told a Hoover virtual policy briefing, the Stanford Daily’s Anna Milstein… Read more »

‘Dropping the Democratic Facade’:  Nations in Transit 2020

     

In its latest report, Nations in Transit 2020: Dropping the Democratic Facade, Freedom House warns of a “stunning democratic breakdown” across Central Europe, the Balkans, and Eurasia as many leaders… Read more »

Post-Covid world ‘already here’? Illiberal plague tests democratic resilience

     

In human history, national emergencies, whether caused by war, invasion, financial crisis, or an epidemic, have often been the occasions for major political reform. It takes a huge external shock… Read more »

Democracy ‘waking from Covid-19 hibernation’ or ‘dangers much greater than opportunities’?

     

“Overall, the dangers are much greater than the opportunities” in terms of the pandemic’s impact on liberty and democracy, says Stanford University’s Francis Fukuyama. “I do think there are opportunities… Read more »

Democracies vulnerable to crisis: Covid exacerbates weaknesses, says BTI

     

The COVID-19 pandemic will exacerbate the very weaknesses that have marked the democratic erosion of the last decade in most of the 137 developing and transformation countries examined in the… Read more »

Quality of democracy reaches new low – but ‘glimmers of hope’

     

The quality of democracy, market economy and governance reached its lowest level since 2004 when the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index (BTI) was first published, it reported today. Limits on freedom… Read more »

Pandemic of power grabs: Autocrats’ opportunity in disaster

     

Even as some leaders exploit the COVID-19 pandemic, their inability to deal with popular suffering will act against the myth that they and their regimes are impregnable, the Economist observes…. Read more »

Self-isolate or renovate? How democracies can shape post-corona world

     

When it comes to combating the Covid-19 pandemic, no one country can expect to achieve its full potential by going it alone, not even the United States. Bold action is… Read more »

‘Viral Authoritarianism’? COVID-19 turns spotlight on democratic erosion

     

Seoul’s decision to hold the April 15 polls in the middle of a pandemic highlights South Korea’s status as a beacon of democracy in Asia. It stands in stark contrast… Read more »

Lost decade for Third Wave democracies?

     

  Popular support for democracy was dwindling even in the decade before expert surveys (such as Freedom in the World and V-Dem) began to show the reality of democratic retreat,… Read more »