Category: Democratic institutions

‘Connectivity is the new geopolitics’: democracy at stake

     

Chinese tech giants Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent are rapidly improving their artificial intelligence, challenging current U.S. tech leaders like Google and Amazon, Fortune’s Jonathan Vanian writes: China’s so-called BAT companies, as New York University… Read more »

Arab Spring hopes ‘being revived across North Africa’?

     

In Sudan, tens of thousands of demonstrators are sitting in to demand the ouster of their longtime ruler. In Algeria, millions of protesters forced out their own octogenarian leader last week…. Read more »

Anti-government protests in Montenegro, Serbia and Albania prompt talk of ‘Balkan Spring’

     

It all started with a video posted on social media: a secret recording from 2016 that appears to show a well-known local tycoon hand over an envelope containing bundles of cash… Read more »

India’s democracy: cause to be ‘resolutely optimistic’?

     

Recent events in India have provided good reasons to worry for those who admire the country’s secular political traditions and cherish its democratic freedoms, the FT’s Victor Mallet writes in… Read more »

Why real ‘fake news’ threatens democracy

     

Last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg welcomed government regulation of content on the Internet in several areas, including “election integrity.” Around the world, there are increasing concerns that “fake news” threatens democracy,… Read more »

Democratic renewal requires collective resilience

     

With this week’s election results, Turkish democracy demonstrated its resilience and vibrancy, and hinted at a future beyond populist and divisive politics, notes analyst Sinan Ülgen, a visiting scholar at… Read more »

Algeria’s transition scenarios: ‘dreams of democracy tempered by fear of Islamism’?

     

President Bouteflika’s resignation has left Algeria facing a period of uncertainty replete with hope and fear, The (London) Times reports. The hope is that, at long last, this oil and gas-rich… Read more »

Ukraine ‘still involved in existential struggle’

     

After the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election on Sunday, the country will likely be stuck with an oligarch-linked president yet again. The two presidential front-runners are Volodymyr Zelensky, a… Read more »

How did Armenia pull off a democratic revolution?

     

For Armenia, a Russian ally, a member of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and once regarded as increasingly autocratic, the 2018 Velvet Revolution was a remarkable achievement, writes Eurasia Democratic Security Network… Read more »

To defend liberal order, Western democracy must compete with alternative models

     

We are witnessing an intellectual transition to a worldview that is in equal parts “naïve, dangerous and ahistorical,” scholars Hal Brands and Charles Edel argue in a “brilliant” new book,… Read more »