Category: Russia

AI, big data and democracy’s future: Misinformation, echo chambers & targeted propaganda?

     

While digital transformation has enriched societal discourse, it has also led to an increase of “misinformation, echo chambers and targeted propaganda” and provided authoritarian states with new means of surveillance… Read more »

Democracy in a post-Western order: decline or renaissance?

     

The U.S.-led liberal order, built by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his successors, is being  dismantled, according to a leading strategist. The U.S. emerged from the horror of the 1940s as… Read more »

Post Wall, Post Square: 1989 – The Light that Failed?

     

Like 1776, 1789 and 1917, the year 1989 was one of those rare moments that mark a decisive turning point in human history. So, at least, it seemed at the… Read more »

Budding social activism, legitimacy crises feed Central Asia’s dramatic transformation

     

Central Asia is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Its governments face legitimacy crises at a time when long-standing leaders are being replaced by little-known, untested ones. Social contracts, by which citizens… Read more »

‘Tsunami Democràtic’: Emerging risk of virtual societal warfare

     

Virtual societal warfare is a new category of cyberaggression that seeks to manipulate or disrupt the information essential for the effective functioning of economic and social systems, RAND researchers Michael… Read more »

Fukuyama vs. Navalny: Fighting fear in Russia

     

Last week, Warsaw hosted the fourth Boris Nemtsov Forum, welcoming dozens of prominent experts, journalists, and activists to discuss “fighting fear in Russia and beyond,” Meduza reports. On October 9,… Read more »

Targeted: How social media is breaking democracy

     

Russian government-backed cyber aggression is heightening concerns from the west following a spate of high-profile incidents, prompting threats of countermeasures from the likes of Nato, the EU and UK, the… Read more »

From Gutenberg to Google: Disinformation wars ‘only just getting started’

     

British populist Nigel Farage and his Brexit party have voted against stronger European Union measures aimed at countering “highly dangerous” Russian disinformation, the Guardian reports: The party cast their votes… Read more »

Russia’s maturing opposition confronts ‘calibrated repression’

     

Russia has declared opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation a “foreign agent”. The move by the justice ministry means the organisation will now be subject to more checks by the authorities,… Read more »