Category: Democratization

Algeria crackdown as election looms: Is a democratic transition possible?

     

Algeria‘s contentious presidential election campaign is highlighting the deep gulf between young people at the heart of a street protest movement and an ageing elite they see as clinging to… Read more »

Offsetting Sudan’s deep state: Unfolding transition offers promise – and substantial risk

     

Sudan’s unfolding transition offers both great promise and substantial risk, according to a new analysis. There is every reason to expect that entrenched interests that have benefited under the old… Read more »

Latin America’s protests: Temporary social agitation or a sign of troubled democracy?

     

Violent protests in Latin America have resulted in destroyed property, thousands of arrests and dozens of deaths. Observers, including scholars of the region, are surprised by the recent turmoil in… Read more »

Global protest wave rattles governments, but can it advance democracy?

     

Whether the unprecedented wave of protests leads to sustainable democratic transitions depends in large part on the strategic sophistication of illiberal regimes and democratic actors, including the latter’s ability to… Read more »

Countering ‘high-tech illiberalism’: Information pollution’s disturbing power

     

Online disinformation campaigns supported by fundamental changes in military and geopolitical strategies of major players such as Russia and China harden tribal factions and undermine the security of infrastructure systems in… Read more »

Baltic Road to Freedom: Rhetoric vs. realpolitik

     

As Soviet communism following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the experience of Baltic “freedom fighters” like Vytautas Landsbergis of Lithuania and Lennart Meri of Estonia demonstrated the  “almost unbridgeable… Read more »

Communism’s Shadow: How post-1989 liberal dream became illiberal nightmare

     

Central and Eastern Europe’s transition to democracy has not been smooth. But there are grounds for hope, notes Alison Smale. What would Vaclav Havel have made of post-1989 developments? she asked… Read more »

Revitalize democracy assistance to counter resilient authoritarians

     

The global prospects for democratization and democracy assistance are worse than at any time in several decades due to the culmination of six trends: a , disillusionment with the Western… Read more »

National security still tied to fate of freedom, democratic solidarity

     

  Today, sophisticates on both the political Left and Right argue that the United States has no business supporting the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people, or that Iraqis were… Read more »

The Global State of Democracy 2019: Addressing the Ills, Reviving the Promise

     

Is democracy broken? Vox’s Sean illing asks. Harvard politics professor Daniel Ziblatt, co-author (along with Steven Levitsky) of 2018’s How Democracies Die, explains why democracies collapse, what norms are most essential… Read more »