Category: Dictatorships

Despotic Data: Autocrats winning online fight of open vs. closed societies?

     

A critical differentiator between traditional media and social media is how ‘targetcasting‘ is available only to a specific audience. Such secret targeting tears at the fabric of democracy, says Tom Wheeler, a… Read more »

Arab democrats need ‘realistic pathways for change’

     

As a fresh wave of protests generates speculation about an Arab Spring 2.0, the challenge for MENA democrats is to move beyond calls for regime change and focus on building… Read more »

Would ‘exit ramp’ for Maduro accelerate Venezuela’s transition?

     

The United States this week imposed sanctions on five Venezuelan officials in the latest step to pressure Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro to step down as the country’s leader, VOA reports… 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 »

What’s behind Latin America’s ‘Autumn of Discontent’?

     

Latin America was primed to explode. Economic malaise, social media, corruption, and foreign meddling combined to fuel raging protests from Chile to Haiti. What’s next for beleaguered democratic regimes in… Read more »

Where every day is Kristallnacht

     

  Eighty-one years ago this week, in what is also known as the “Night of Broken Glass,” hundreds of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries in Nazi Germany were damaged or destroyed,… Read more »

Kremlin Winter: How strong is Putin in reality?

     

Barring a few notable exceptions, the consensus among the commentariat over the past few years — at least in the US and Britain — portrays Vladimir Putin as a mastermind… Read more »

1989: ‘Ideological lie’ exposed in democracy’s paradoxical moment

     

No empire in history has disintegrated as quickly or as bloodlessly as the Soviet one, in the remarkable year that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989…. Read more »

Arab Spring 2.0? Understanding the New Wave of Protests

     

  A new wave of protests and demonstrations has erupted across the Middle East and North Africa over the past 9 months, the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program observes. In… Read more »

Liberal democracy’s 1989 promise ‘a squandered opportunity’

     

Two great earthquakes shaped the present global order. The first, in 1989, seemed to promise an irresistible march towards liberal democracy and open markets. The opportunity was squandered by those… Read more »