The novel coronavirus is compounding preexisting threats to press freedoms around the world, according to a new report by the international watchdog organization Reporters Without Borders, ABC News reports: Reporters… Read more »
COVID-19 signals a global paradigm shift because even before the pandemic, the world was already in the grips of a far-reaching transformation, analyst Ullrich Fichtner writes for Der Spiegel. The… Read more »
Just over a year ago, opposition candidates won the mayoralties of İstanbul, Ankara, and nine other cities across Turkey in a striking political upset for President Erdoğan, notes the Project… Read more »
In the absence of global democratic leadership, China is taking advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to proclaim the superiority of its authoritarian model, notes Keith B. Richburg, director of the… Read more »
Authoritarian-minded leaders around the world have used the coronavirus emergency to consolidate power. In Europe, the governments of Poland and Hungary have done that and more. They have managed to… Read more »
The embeddedness of liberal democracies in an interdependent world characterized by relatively free cross-border flows of goods, services, assets and people has amplified the virulent effects of highly contagious deadly… Read more »
China must be held accountable for the coronavirus outbreak, as thousands of lives could have been saved if it had acted earlier, says a leading human rights advocate. The Chinese… Read more »
Russia is hardly the only country struggling to respond to the pandemic. But the political consequences of an inadequate response are much greater for a highly centralized and deeply personalized… Read more »
Hong Kong authorities arrested fifteen prominent activists, including former lawmakers, in what is thought to be the largest crackdown (HT: CFR) on the city’s pro-democracy movement since mass protests began… 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 »