China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has used the coronavirus pandemic to shore up his political power at home, but the tools the Communist Party has exploited to do this are threatening… Read more »
Like an asteroid, coronavirus is the textbook example of an exogenous shock. The threat came from beyond. Yet the pathogen offers a unique stress test of each country’s resilience, argues… Read more »
In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease… Read more »
The Covid-19 pandemic is unlikely to alleviate demands for more democratic governance, respect for human rights, equality, an end to austerity, and meaningful steps to combat climate change and corruption,… Read more »
China isn’t the only authoritarian regime to take advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to expand its sharp power in an effort to undermine democratic norms and institutions. Russia’s decade-long health… Read more »
Chinese officials claim that their “success” in containing the coronavirus outbreak and Western countries’ ongoing “failure” to do so attests to the superiority of the so-called China model of one-party… Read more »
China has been buying up ads on U.S. social-media sites and adopting online tactics reminiscent of Russian disinformation campaigns in an apparent attempt to shape the story internationally about the… Read more »
Whereas democracies operate on consensus, autocrats react with sweeping measures threatening the rule of law. Who is better prepared for the COVID-19 crisis? Deutsche Welle asks: Austrian democracy researcher Tamara… Read more »
Vladimir Putin’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has produced a paradox: instead of using the pandemic to further strengthen his personalized power, Russia’s president has refused to take tough measures,… Read more »
The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating efforts among authoritarian governments as regimes tighten their grip at home while seizing the opportunity to advance their agenda abroad, argues senior policy adviser James… Read more »