Category: Dictatorships

Mini-Arab Spring? ‘Khashoggi was right: Arabs still want democracy’

     

Before his death, the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was trying to set up several organizations to promote the cause of democracy in the region — particularly one that aimed, among… Read more »

How Cuba hijacked Venezuela

     

Raul Castro, head of the ruling Communist Party and former president, said that in the wake of Venezuela’s economic collapse, Cuba’s economic situation “could get worse” in the coming months… Read more »

Downplaying Islamism, regime aims to demobilize Iran’s ‘underground but still vibrant’ civil society

     

  The European Union decided on Monday to extend restrictive measures imposed against Iran to last for an additional year until April 13, 2020, due to “serious human rights violations”… Read more »

China’s foreign interference exposed – yet again

     

Beijing agents pressured two Chinese-Australian authors to provide information about a secret Canberra inquiry into Chinese meddling in domestic politics, local media reported Monday: Yang Jun, a novelist and democracy… Read more »

Confucius Institutes ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ of China’s sharp power

     

A documentary critical of China’s Confucius Institutes has had varied reception across the globe. Newsroom’s Laura Walters uncovers the story behind a cancelled viewing at the University of Auckland. In the… Read more »

‘Egypt Under Pressure’: toward a personalist dictatorship

     

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi plans to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House on April 9, the Egyptian strongman’s second Oval Office visit in two years, the… Read more »

‘Textbook destabilization’: dissidents feel Beijing’s sharp power wrath abroad

     

China’s Communist authorities are employing repressive tactics honed at home to harass exiles and minority activists in the latest manifestation of Beijing’s sharp power. As China extends its influence around… Read more »

Main threat to liberal democracy ‘comes from within’?

     

Just as optimism over communism’s collapse and liberal democracy’s triumph masked underlying realities, so does Robert Kagan’s pessimism that strongmen are striking back warp understanding, argues Sheri Berman, a professor of political… Read more »