With migration, Russian aggressiveness and Brexit, the European Union is taking the western Balkans seriously again, the New York Times reports: The bloc’s strategy for the Western Balkans, published in February,… Read more »
Democracies generally remain the world’s wealthiest societies. They are the most open to new ideas and opportunities, the least corrupt, and the best at protecting individual liberties, according to… Read more »
Mark Galeotti’s timely account of the Russian underworld – The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia – charts its rise from Soviet-era gangsters to Kremlin collaborators under Vladimir Putin, notes analyst Oliver… Read more »
In his Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick Deneen, a professor of political science at Notre Dame, targets some genuine weaknesses of liberalism, sometimes with considerable eloquence, but never succeeds in presenting… Read more »
Russia appears today as an assertive power ready to weaken international norms and kick over the global chessboard, notes the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies. Even… Read more »
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi should prioritize reforms to end serious human rights violations during his second term, Human Rights Watch said today: Al-Sisi won the April 2, 2018 election… Read more »
Russia isn’t the only authoritarian regime to deploy disinformation as a tool to undermine liberal democracies. “Within the last few weeks, China has leaped into the front ranks of global… Read more »
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed contrition for allowing third-party apps to grab the data of its users without their permission and for being “too slow to spot and respond… Read more »
Armenia plans to change its system of governance in a bid to improve democracy — but critics claim it’s all smoke and mirrors. In early April, just as Yerevan prepares… Read more »
Hungary is no longer a democracy, says Nóra Köves, an activist with the pro-democracy Eötvös Károly Institute. “I wouldn’t say that, no. Not, I think, any more. We are heading to… Read more »
