UN ‘abandons democracy’ in Asia? Why governance still matters
Governance should be “framed in terms of how power is being exercised instead of how it is acquired,” according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the… Read more »
Category: National Endowment for Democracy
Angolan activist’s prosecution is ‘retaliation’ for democracy award
Washington-based policy-makers on Capitol Hill and non-governmental groups alike are closely monitoring the prosecution of Angolan anti-corruption activist Rafael Marques, VOA reports. “Rafael was prosecuted in the past and imprisoned… Read more »
Kleptocrats without borders: Putin on defensive against corruption
A new poll released this week reveals a lot about how Russians view President Vladimir Putin. A whopping 87 percent of those surveyed say they trust him to represent their nation on… Read more »
Saudi ‘game of thrones’ consolidates autocracy
The appointment of Mohammad bin Salman, 31, as Saudi Arabia’s next king will accelerate his radical reform and further solidify the U.S.-Saudi partnership, says analyst Karen Elliott House, author of… Read more »
Zimbabwe in Transition: Reform and Reconstruction
> A 2015 Contingency Planning Memorandum, “Political Instability in Zimbabwe,” highlighted the potential for violence in connection with leadership succession. And there are at least five areas of concern as… Read more »
Political bots – ‘propaganda powerhouse’ threatens democracy
Bots airing pro-Kremlin views have flooded the Russian-language portion of the social media platform Twitter, in what researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute’s Computational Propaganda Research Project say is an… Read more »
Liberal democracy not yet dead but crisis likely to persist
In his insightful and harrowing new book, Edward Luce, a columnist for The Financial Times, issues a chilling warning, Michiko Kakutani writes for The New York Times: “Western liberal democracy… Read more »
Time to counter China’s ‘soft power’ influence ops
The Chinese Communist Party’s covert campaign of influence in Australia, exposed in a series of articles and “Power and Influence,” (above) set off a domestic debate about just how wary… Read more »
Western Balkans double standard and malign foreign influence spur extremism
There’s a double standard in the Western Balkans, according to analysts Jelena Beslin and Marija Ignjatijevic. Governments in the region generally equate violent extremism with Islamist radicalization and local youths… Read more »
Russia’s test lab for cyberwar: social media ‘democratize propaganda’
In Russia’s shadow, the decades-old nightmare of hackers stopping the gears of modern society has become a reality in Ukraine, Andy Greenberg writes for Wired: And the blackouts weren’t just… Read more »