Transatlantic axis ‘no longer an engine of global democracy’?
At the end of the Cold War, as the lone superpower, the United States remained deeply engaged with the world, but the purpose of this engagement had changed, argues Randall… Read more »
Democracy under siege: tech firms step in
Tech companies, which have been pilloried for nearly two years for not doing enough to combat disinformation, increasingly are acting in urgent, public ways, The Washington Post reports: Microsoft has… Read more »
Asia’s democracies: ‘still a force to be reckoned with’?
Recent months have seen questions about the long-term prospects for democracy in Asia come into focus once again, the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative observes. While Southeast Asia has seen… Read more »
Algeria’s Mouwatana: ‘opportunity for building energetic dissent’?
Algerian police recently arrested a number of political and human rights activists and journalists who protested in central Algiers against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for re-election for a fifth term,… Read more »
‘Unify minds’: ideological rallying call to China’s propaganda cadres
China’s President Xi Jinping has issued a rallying call for Communist Party cadres in charge of propaganda and ideology to close ranks around the “party core” as Beijing faces an… Read more »
Can democrats restore ‘Internet’s Lost Promise’?
Russia has used information warfare to influence election outcomes with the aim of weakening the values, defenses and self-belief of Western democracies, notes Sir Peter Westmacott, a former British Ambassador… Read more »
Tech giants expose global Iranian propaganda push
Hundreds of accounts allegedly originating in Iran and Russia were shuttered by Facebook and Twitter for “inauthentic behavior” and “coordinated manipulation,” the companies announced. Facebook deleted 652 pages, groups, and… Read more »
Soviet collapse ‘echoes’ in China’s Belt and Road Initiative
China’s increasingly image-conscious government has appointed a trusted member of the ruling Communist Party to head up its international propaganda operation, AP reports: Former top internet regulator Xu Lin will… Read more »
South Africa’s civil society halted kleptocratic state capture
South Africa’s fragile democracy was protected from kleptocratic state capture by the “galvanizing action” of a vibrant coalition of civil society groups, including organized labor, say the authors of a… Read more »
50 Years After Prague Spring, Lessons on Freedom
As his country commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Soviet invasion that crushed an effort to ease the totalitarian grip of Communism known as the Prague Spring, the Czech Republic’s… Read more »