Category: Democratic Governance

No avoiding Mideast’s underlying issues of governance, corruption and repression

     

The next U.S. administration will inherit problems associated with the Middle East that are vastly more challenging than any in a generation as the old order has given way to… Read more »

Unraveling of Post-1989 Order – The Specter Haunting Europe

     

The unraveling of the post–Cold War liberal order is manifested by the West’s declining influence in international politics; the waning attraction of liberal democracy; and the maturing tensions within liberal… Read more »

After Mosul: state-building means democratic state-building

     

A dispute between Iraq and Turkey has emerged as a dramatic geopolitical sideshow to the complicated military campaign to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, from the Islamic State, with Turkey’s… Read more »

What chance for democracy in the Middle East?

     

There are many lessons to take from the Iraq debacle, notes Gerard Russell, who served as an assistant to Iraq’s first elected prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, in 2005. The postwar… Read more »

Decisive factors that will shape post-conflict Mosul

     

The root causes of Iraq’s civil war involve the sectarian policies of previous Iraqi governments and the failure of the Iraqi political system to establish power-sharing arrangements, argues Zalmay Khalilzad,… Read more »

‘Africa Rising’ – or reeling?

     

For decades Africa was eager for a new narrative, and in recent years it got a snappy one. The Economist published a cover story titled “Africa Rising.” A Texas business… Read more »

Illiberalism and authoritarianism can be successfully challenged

     

Illiberalism and authoritarianism in central and eastern Europe can be successfully challenged, according to Tom Junes, a member of the Human and Social Studies Foundation and a visiting fellow at… Read more »

Ukraine about to enter a ‘more difficult and dangerous phase’

     

What is happening in Ukraine shows that if there is sufficient courage and strength in numbers, people power can make a difference, says Carnegie analyst Judy Dempsey. The sheer pressure… Read more »

Putting the populist revolt in its place: economic have-nots & cultural backlash

     

In many Western democracies, this is a year of revolt against elites, notes Joseph S. Nye, Jr., University Professor at Harvard University. As Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens put it,… Read more »

Azerbaijan: authoritarian constitutions send a signal

     

Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president of 13 years, is often described as a “strongman” who enjoys near absolute power over the oil-rich nation on the Caspian Sea, The Financial Times reports:… Read more »