Category: Democratic Transitions

Myanmar’s Burden of High Expectations

     

By April 1 Myanmar will have elected its new president, heralding the end of over six decades of authoritarianism, Carnegie Endowment writes. But the new administration—burdened with high expectations, little… Read more »

Algeria: ‘birth of a new democracy’?

     

International media outlets substantially covered news on the recently-endorsed constitutional amendments in Algeria, according to Sasha Toperich and Samy Boukaila of the Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins School of… Read more »

‘Hybrid’ South Africa: poised between democracy & autocracy?

     

  A survey by Afrobarometer shows that growing dissatisfaction with the country’s leadership and government performance has spilled over into frustration with democracy in general, writes analyst Boniface Dulani: Looked… Read more »

Venezuela: is a peaceful political transition possible?

     

Venezuela’s recently-elected assembly has approved a pardon for political prisoners. The move is the latest in the country’s “transition from authoritarianism to democracy,” said opposition MUD coalition leader Jesus Torrealba…. Read more »

Promoting Democracy in Central Asia and the Caucasus: How Have We Done?

     

  The Freedom Support Act of 1992 (Freedom for Russia and Emerging Eurasian Democracies and Open Markets Support Act) made the “promotion of democracy” a main strategic priority of the US… Read more »

U.S.-ASEAN summit needs more than symbolism

     

  Human rights and democracy advocates are calling on President Barack Obama to use the occasion of this week’s U.S.-ASEAN summit at California’s Sunnylands retreat to publicly raise concerns about… Read more »

Is presidentialist democracy failing?

     

Perplexed by today’s turbulent American political scene? Not to worry: A distinguished political scientist wrote an essay 26 years ago that anticipated our predicament with eerie explanatory power. The only… Read more »

Arab voices address challenges of New Middle East

     

Five years after the Arab Spring, the crisis of legitimacy that helped precipitate it has lost neither its resonance nor its urgency, according to a qualitative survey of Arab experts… Read more »