Search Results for: Gorbachev

Russia: Pandemic tests Putin’s grip on power

     

Whereas Mikhail Gorbachev granted his people freedom and suffered a crushing personal defeat, Vladimir Putin is doing exactly the opposite, says a leading analyst. Putin, whose greatest fear is pressure… Read more »

Incompetence, impatience & impotence: Russia shows same traits that befell USSR

     

  The way Russian pro-governmental media approached Hungary’s “coronavirus coup” stand-off with the EU in the time of COVID-19 is in line with the outlets’ long-term attitude towards Hungary, notes… Read more »

Russia under Putin: 20 years of protests

     

Calling for “discipline and responsibility” in the face of the coronavirus, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Wednesday announced the postponement of a referendum next month on whether he… Read more »

What went wrong in Central and Eastern Europe? A case for ‘pessoptimism’

     

There’s has been extensive and ongoing debate about “what went wrong in Central and Eastern Europe” and what explains its various forms of illiberalism and democratic decline. A variety of,… Read more »

Reversing CEE democratic backsliding a Sisyphean task

     

Countries in Central and Eastern Europe that made significant gains in building their new democracies following the Cold War are now experiencing a crisis of illiberalism that is weakening the… Read more »

States of Change: Eastern Europeans ‘fearful for democracy’

     

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, central and eastern Europeans believe that democracy, freedom of speech and the rule of law are under threat, according to a… 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 »

Ethiopia’s Abyssinian spring enters a critical phase

     

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office amid profound strife, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize just seven months before the country’s elections. The timing isn’t necessarily good. The… Read more »

How Ukraine became Eastern Europe’s ‘vibrant’ democratic success

     

When the Ukrainian autocrat Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia after a popular uprising in 2014, thousands of citizens poured into Mezhyhirya, his 340-acre estate on the outskirts of Kiev, Michelle… Read more »

Fulfilling the promise of 1989: Time for a second liberation of ‘profound renewal’

     

On the tenth anniversary of 1989, at the brink of the millennium, we could celebrate both the original triumph of the velvet revolutions and great subsequent progress. By the twentieth… Read more »