Anything to break the information blockade in North Korea should be encouraged, from USB drives containing foreign films to radios that can be tuned to news broadcasts from abroad,… Read more »
Some may dismiss Gao Zhisheng’s prediction of the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party as the wishful thinking of a persecuted dissident, says Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment… Read more »
There are many possible causes of the contemporary crisis of democratic belief – economic stagnation and sluggish income growth for median workers; and growing inequality, as educated workers are better… Read more »
While the resurgent authoritarians of Russia and China are investing in the expansion of soft power, that of the Western democracies is dwindling, analysts suggest. The European Union’s approach to… Read more »
The argument for liberalism and democracy has rested on economic success. More wealth for more people has been generated in societies calling themselves liberal, democratic, and capitalist, notes Zachary Karabell,… Read more »
Since the mid-1990s, when an estimated one million people died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses during the famine that plagued North Korea, jangmadang (private markets) have emerged as a critical means of… Read more »
In recent years, populist and authoritarian leaders around the world have openly sought to discredit liberal principles and undermine democratic values such as the rule of law and checks on… Read more »
Mário Soares, a pivotal figure in Portugal’s transition from dictatorship to democracy who as prime minister led his long-impoverished country into the European Union, died Saturday. He was 92 years old,… Read more »
Fidel Castro, who died on November 25, was a political tyrant who succeeded in convincing many people in the democratic world that he was actually the very opposite, the National… Read more »
Democracy today is facing greater challenges than at any time since the fall of communism a quarter of a century ago; greater than at any time, in fact, since the… Read more »
