Category: National Endowment for Democracy

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 »

Anti-government protests in Montenegro, Serbia and Albania prompt talk of ‘Balkan Spring’

     

It all started with a video posted on social media: a secret recording from 2016 that appears to show a well-known local tycoon hand over an envelope containing bundles of cash… Read more »

India’s democracy: cause to be ‘resolutely optimistic’?

     

Recent events in India have provided good reasons to worry for those who admire the country’s secular political traditions and cherish its democratic freedoms, the FT’s Victor Mallet writes in… Read more »

‘Ordinary Heroes’: post-conflict reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina

     

A huge fireworks display and subsequent cultural-entertainment program in Sarajevo attended by dozens of Bosnian officials, were a subtle sign of Beijing’s growing imprint on the region, RFE/RL’s Alan Crosby… Read more »

Democratic renewal requires collective resilience

     

With this week’s election results, Turkish democracy demonstrated its resilience and vibrancy, and hinted at a future beyond populist and divisive politics, notes analyst Sinan Ülgen, a visiting scholar at… Read more »

Algeria’s transition scenarios: ‘dreams of democracy tempered by fear of Islamism’?

     

President Bouteflika’s resignation has left Algeria facing a period of uncertainty replete with hope and fear, The (London) Times reports. The hope is that, at long last, this oil and gas-rich… Read more »

Ukraine ‘still involved in existential struggle’

     

After the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election on Sunday, the country will likely be stuck with an oligarch-linked president yet again. The two presidential front-runners are Volodymyr Zelensky, a… Read more »

How did Armenia pull off a democratic revolution?

     

For Armenia, a Russian ally, a member of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and once regarded as increasingly autocratic, the 2018 Velvet Revolution was a remarkable achievement, writes Eurasia Democratic Security Network… Read more »