Category: Democratic institutions

Mao’s long shadow clouds China’s sharp power

     

In recent years, China has spent a small fortune trying to influence the world through “soft power” — relying on language, cuisine and culture, rather than the conventional hard tools of aircraft… Read more »

Populist outsiders sweep Tunisia’s elections?

     

Tunisians headed to the polls on Sunday in their second free and fair presidential election. The election was exceptionally competitive, with no candidate in a crowded field of 26 garnering… Read more »

How to Fix Democracy

     

Bertelsmann Foundation and Humanity in Action’s How to Fix Democracy is a video and podcast series exploring practical solutions to the threats facing democracies, hosted by  Andrew Keen, author of… Read more »

Rethinking backsliding: Why flawed liberals leave democracy vulnerable

     

One thing is especially disconcerting about the illiberal turn in Eastern and Central Europe. It has been the early front-runners of democratization – Hungary and Poland – where democratic backsliding… Read more »

‘Harder edge’ to China’s sharp power threatens democracies

     

China is pushing to build up cultural “soft power” to complement the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $60 billion infrastructure program it has launched as part of the Asian… Read more »

China ‘in danger of losing its grip’ over Tibet and Xinjiang

     

China is in danger of losing its grip over Tibet and Xinjiang and needs a radical reset of its ethnic policies, experts suggest. In September last year, Shohret Hoshur, a… Read more »

‘Left for Dead’? Why the coalitions that sustained social democracy collapsed

     

It is—as it has so often been in the past—once again fashionable to project, in the words of the Financial Times, that “the future belongs to the left,” notes Yascha Mounk,… Read more »

Trans-Atlantic democracy crises: Exposing ‘myth of European values’

     

Populist insurgencies in the world’s two oldest English-speaking democracies have exposed deep flaws in their constitutional systems. Attending to these defects should be an urgent order of business in both… Read more »

Tunisia’s democratic project ‘in jeopardy’ or ‘not at risk’?

     

  The birthplace of the “Arab Spring”, Tunisia is the only country to achieve a peaceful transition to democracy following the 2011 popular revolts that swept autocrats from power across… Read more »