Category: Democratic Transitions

30 years after Mongolia’s transition: Has democracy delivered?

     

To protect its sovereignty and independence, Mongolia has walked a geopolitical tightrope tethered by a “good neighbor” policy with Russia and China and a “third neighbor” policy with the United… Read more »

Venezuela’s endgame ‘closer than Maduro thinks’?

     

  Cuban security officials are a critical ingredient of Nicolas Maduro’s ability to retain power. So, as the Trump administration increases pressure on Venezuela’s pretender president, it must also do the same against… Read more »

Why Tunisia’s transition succeeded

     

Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed has appointed Elyes Fakhfakh to be prime minister on January 20. Fakhfakh, who served as tourism minister following the revolution, and then as finance minister in… Read more »

Memory laws – ‘a litmus test for new democracies’

     

In his 2019 book, “After the Fall: Crisis, Recovery and the Making of a New Spain,” Tobias Buck of the Financial Times reports that in 2018 there were 1,143 Spanish streets named for Franco… Read more »

Fear and learning: Arab world not finished with democracy

     

A vibrant protest movement is visible in Iran and across the Middle East — but it isn’t calling for Islamic revolution, much less the tired misrule of the mullahs, The… Read more »

Liberal democracy ‘will not survive the 21st century’?

     

Authoritarian regimes are experience a resurgence globally. Various strains of ethno-nationalism-populism are displacing liberalism and the rise of an anti-liberal order globally has many observers wondering if the core tenets… Read more »

Why the West is losing the fight for democracy

     

The “politics of imitation” is a phrase that recurs innumerable times in The Light That Failed: Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy by Ivan Krastev (above) and Stephen Holmes,… 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 »