Turkey ‘will never be the same’ after referendum
On April 16, Turkish voters will be casting votes in the most consequential referendum of modern Turkish history, notes Henri J. Barkey, the director of the Middle East Program at… Read more »
Category: illiberalism
Hungary’s ‘political vandalism’ threatens CEU, civil society
Hungary said it will not withdraw new legislation to regulate foreign universities that a Budapest college founded by American financier and philanthropist George Soros says could force it out of… Read more »
Civil society the target in Hungary’s attack on Soros-funded university
Students and staff at the Central European University (CEU) in Hungary are protesting against what they say are government plans to close it down, the BBC reports: The university says… Read more »
Turkey heading for dictatorship, exposing underlying ideology
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Europeans on Wednesday that they would no longer be able to walk safely in the street if Western politicians continued with perceived provocations against Turkish… Read more »
Democratic modernity ‘not enough’ for CEE
The illiberal, populist drift in Central and Eastern Europe is a consequence of disillusion with the European Union as well as historical legacies, says a prominent analyst. “These countries had… Read more »
The third counter-wave to democracy and liberalism. What’s next?
If history shows that successive waves of democracy are followed by anti-democratic reaction, the current surge of authoritarian, illiberal or populist politics should suggest that we’re eventually due a democratic… Read more »
Hungarian law targets foreign-backed NGOs
The Hungarian government is moving to limit the influence of nongovernmental organizations that promote democracy and the rule of law, Lili Bayer writes for POLITICO: This week, parliament is expected… Read more »
How central Europe’s high hopes gave way to creeping authoritarianism
The central European states were the vanguards of communism’s collapse in the late 1980s, prompting a sense of inevitability about democracy’s benign coming, reinforced by the diverse figures who stepped… Read more »
Facing a two-front war of ideas
America is currently engaged in an epic war of ideas in which the country’s very way of life is at stake. The struggle is reminiscent of earlier clashes against ideologies… Read more »
Counter-ISIS plus vs. jihadists’ ‘war of attrition’?
Al Qaeda and the Islamic State could reconcile their differences to present a different but persistent security challenge to the United States for the foreseeable future, experts in counterterrorism told… Read more »