Facing a growing crackdown on dissent around the globe, human rights advocates are engaged in a creative and critical fight to defend fundamental rights. With “serious threats” to civil… Read more »
For civic activism, it appears to be both the best and worst of times, argues analyst Richard Youngs. The positive dynamics of empowerment and the negative trend of constraints on… Read more »
A healthy and functioning civil society is vital for human rights and democracy everywhere, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission writes: Civil society organizations (CSOs) play a crucial role in… Read more »
The Kremlin’s ‘active measures’ to undermine Western democracies mark a more aggressive step up from Russia’s earlier efforts to assert soft power, discussed here by Brookings analyst Fiona Hill. Meanwhile,… Read more »
Western ideas—which many in the West believe are universal—collide with the ideals of Middle Eastern societies in ways that aren’t always obvious, argues Steven Cook, a Fellow for Middle… Read more »
Respect for human-rights and rule of law have deteriorated markedly during the term of Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a new U.S. government report, which blames an ideological tightening… Read more »
The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) today launched the “Civic Freedom Monitor,” a rebranded version of its long-running NGO Law Monitor – widely recognized as the most comprehensive source… Read more »
The Arab Spring opened a window of opportunity to revise democracy support in a direction that better reflects local interpretations of citizenship and rights, but external actors have yet to… Read more »
The next U.S. administration should steer its Middle East policy toward democracy promotion across the region, argues Charles W. Dunne, a Middle East Institute scholar and former U.S. diplomat. The… Read more »
Subscribe to the Democracy Digest Blog RSS feed here. Contents Obama’s inaugural – nuanced support for democracy assistance? Engage Iran’s ‘grand alliance’ for reform Afghanistan: corruption and ‘legitimacy… Read more »