Power shifts in Putin’s Kremlin
In recent months, there have been significant shifts in the Kremlin’s usually static leadership structure. Many of Vladimir Putin’s long-time allies have been removed from power and replaced with younger… Read more »
Morocco election highlights political polarization, maintains constitutional smokescreen
Morocco‘s moderate Islamists have won parliamentary elections, beating a rival party critics say is too close to the royal palace in a tight race that will complicate negotiations to… Read more »
Regime ramps up repression as Russia ponders return to Cuba
The Russian military is considering the possibility of regaining its Soviet-era bases on Cuba and in Vietnam, the Defense Ministry said Friday, a statement that comes amid growing U.S.-Russia tensions… Read more »
Does populism’s rise mean liberalism’s end?
Liberal democracy may be facing dark times, as a conference at the National Endowment (left and below) this week suggested. But this is not the first time the Liberal Story… Read more »
Aleppo the new Sarajevo? ’48 Hours of Awakeness’
Is Aleppo the new Sarajevo, as French activist intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy claims? Now that a revolution really is needed, those who were fervent are quite cool, the Polish poet Czeslaw… Read more »
If Africa had 100 citizens…….
Surveys like those of Afrobarometer testify to the sometimes “mystifyingly” resilient commitment to democratic values and institutions, Stanford University’s Larry Diamond told an audience at the National Endowment for Democracy… Read more »
How social media undermines democratic transitions
Egypt’s 2011 uprising has become synonymous with the successful use of social media to overthrow an entrenched authoritarian regime, note analysts Sean Aday, Deen Freelon and Marc Lynch. Popular and… Read more »
Putting the populist revolt in its place: economic have-nots & cultural backlash
In many Western democracies, this is a year of revolt against elites, notes Joseph S. Nye, Jr., University Professor at Harvard University. As Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens put it,… Read more »
Identifying vulnerability in North Korea’s leadership
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un wears several “hats”—or holds several positions of authority—that enable him to command the challenging, albeit ruthless, issues that come with being a totalitarian dictator, analyst Robert… Read more »
Russia urged to find masterminds of 2006 Politkovskaya murder
Colleagues of slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya gathered Friday at the office of her paper Novaya Gazeta exactly 10 years after the crusading reporter was shot dead, AFP reports: A… Read more »