FIFA World Cup: why democracies excel
As with past World Cups, there is evidence this year that successful teams are more likely to emerge from democratic countries than authoritarian states, notes Margaret Marshall, a Program Officer… Read more »
Unity of democracies’ imperative in face of Russia’s active measures
Russia has “pursued and will pursue even more aggressive cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns with the intent of degrading our democratic values and weakening our alliances,” according to Dan Coats, the… Read more »
China’s coercive economic measures targeting democratic states
Most of Beijing’s unilateral coercive economic measures are aimed at democratic states, according to a new analysis. In part, China uses coercion against these states because bribery, corruption, and… Read more »
Radicals, not centrists, are most hostile to democracy
In a thought-provoking opinion article recently published in the New York Times, political scientist David Adler draws on two large-scale public opinion surveys — the World Values Survey (WVS) and the European Values… Read more »
Turkey’s historic election: last off-ramp before dictatorship?
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is campaigning for re-election, seized on the latest Turkish growth figures as a vindication of his economic policies in the face of skepticism from not… Read more »
Jihadist propaganda offline
Insurgent strategic communication has rarely posed as great a threat to regional and international security as it does today in Syria, where jihadists are using it to aggressively advance their… Read more »
Media crackdown raises fears for Pakistan’s democracy
The abduction of newspaper columnist and prominent critic of the military, Gul Bukhari (left), came just a day after the army’s chief spokesman declared that social media users who… Read more »
Vietnam protests bigger than ‘anti-China’ nationalism
Thousands turned out in major Vietnamese cities on Sunday and Monday to protest government plans to grant long-term leases for foreign companies operating in special economic zones (SEZs), prompting clashes… Read more »
Civil society fears Egypt’s crackdown signals start of a trend
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index classifies four of the countries at this year’s World Cup as “authoritarian” – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Egypt. The results at the World Cup for these… Read more »
How illiberalism took hold of central Europe
Leading Polish intellectuals are speaking out against the country’s judicial reforms. Fearing Poland’s democracy is at stake, they have urged the European Court of Justice to intervene, Deutsche-Welle reports: Former… Read more »