Category: Democratic institutions

Self-regulating democracy – declared moribund, may be more resilient

     

Democracy, repeatedly declared moribund by schadenfreudian pundits, may be more resilient than some acknow­ledge, notes Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of 10… Read more »

Twilight of Democracy? The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

     

Changes in U.S. and European democracies over the past decade are examined by Anne Applebaum, Atlantic staff writer, National Endowment for Democracy (NED) board member and the author of the forthcoming Twilight… Read more »

Democracy for Palestinians? Election talk rekindles hope

     

The European Union is pressuring the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership to hold legislative and presidential elections, as the body appears to be moving toward a more strong-armed approach to Palestinian affairs… Read more »

Advancing Arab democracy: interests vs. ideals

     

The Arab Spring uprisings began a century after Woodrow Wilson began a push to promote democracy abroad, believing this would foster world peace and stability. Over the last 100 years,… Read more »

Why democracy depends on the ‘deep state’

     

Like all modern democracies, the U.S. needs a deep state, because it is crucial to fighting corruption and upholding the rule of law, argues Francis Fukuyama, a senior fellow at… Read more »

The Art of Deceit: How China and Russia’s sharp power subverts the West

     

For much of the last decade, China and Russia have been waging political warfare against the West – and we simply didn’t notice, says the co-editor of a new analysis…. Read more »

Which nation improved the most in 2019?

     

Two countries became notably less despotic in 2019. In Sudan mass protests led to the ejection of Omar al-Bashir, one of the world’s vilest tyrants. However, the risk that thugs from… Read more »

Market democracies’ ‘Faustian bargain’ being questioned

     

The United States ranks 15 in the Human Freedom Index 2019 released today by the Cato Institute, Canada’s Fraser Institute, and the Liberales Institut at Germany’s Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom…. Read more »

‘The End of Techo-Utopianism’: Can technology destroy democracy?

     

….or will algorithms someday be used to optimize the ballot box, The Economist asks in a must-read long essay: @TheEconomist When it comes to eroding an existing democracy, rather than… Read more »

Is advancing democracy a moral foreign policy?

     

It is a mistake to conflate militarized forms of regime change with advancing democracy, observers suggest. The morality of a president’s foreign policy should be gauged on a rubric based… Read more »