How Covid-19 will change the world
The governments of Australia, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Israel, New Zealand & Norway register the highest scores in our new index: they have performed best in managing the #public… Read more »
Author Archives: DemDigest
Civil society sources of Ukraine’s resilience
Ukraine is a front-line state in the struggle between European rule-based order and Russian kleptocratic autocracy. Since the Euromaidan Revolution in 2013–14, Russia has deployed a range of measures –… Read more »
Challenging the ‘Retrenchment Syndrome’
Retrenchment may hold emotional appeal for Americans tired of protracted military commitments abroad, but blind adherence to an orthodoxy based on emotion rather than reason would make Americans less safe… Read more »
Illiberal competitors challenge transnational civil society networks
The unipolar moment has passed, and it isn’t coming back, according to Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon, the authors of Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order. The United… Read more »
Secondary Infektion: Russia-linked disinformation campaign exposed
A group of Russia-based hackers used sophisticated new techniques to spread disinformation in the U.S. and avoid detection by social media companies for years, according to a new report from an… Read more »
Time to abandon muddled thinking about China’s ‘Mussolini model’
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne has criticized China for creating “disinformation” during the coronavirus pandemic, saying it “will cost lives,” Bloomberg reports. “It is troubling that some countries are… Read more »
COVID-19 ‘reveals fragility of our democratic values’?
Democratic governments have implemented measures similar to those by autocracies in response to the pandemic. Are these value trade-offs temporary experiments, or will they be here to stay? asks… Read more »
Hungary vote an ‘optical illusion’ and ‘peacock dance’
Hungarian lawmakers have voted in favour of repealing extraordinary powers granted to Prime Minister Viktor Orban to fight the coronavirus, the BBC reports: Members of parliament unanimously requested the… Read more »
The limits of authoritarian compatibility
Authoritarian regimes are corrupt in a more fundamental way than liberal democracies because the access to power on every level of state bureaucracy in the former effectively signifies access to… Read more »
Illiberal leaders targeting media freedom
On Monday, a court in Manila convicted Filipino American journalist Maria Ressa of something called “cyber libel.” Her case will have severe ramifications for press freedom not only in South Asia… Read more »