Author Archives: DemDigest

Post-Covid democratic legitimacy demands ‘re-imagining social contracts’?

     

Václav Havel was spot on when he wrote: ‘The natural disadvantage of democracy is that it is extremely tiring to those who mean it honestly, while it allows almost everything… Read more »

‘When the World Wasn’t Looking’: An inflection point for democracy?

     

From anti-science conspiracy theories to state-sponsored disinformation, the United Nations warns that an “infodemic” of half-truths and falsehoods is undermining the effort to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic. How is social… Read more »

Covid crisis exposes ‘chimera of authoritarian competence’

     

The novel coronavirus pandemic will only exacerbate recent anti-democratic trends, according to a new policy brief from the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI). While “it is neither foreseeable how fast and… Read more »

Yet another regime using Covid pandemic to tighten its grip

     

Egypt’s military-backed government is using the coronavirus pandemic to tighten its grip on the country, human rights activists say. In recent weeks, authorities have ordered up punishments, including prison terms,… Read more »

What China Wants: Ideology at root of ‘new type of cold war’

     

The world’s “free and open societies” should collaborate to stop their capital and technology from aiding China’s human rights violations and military build-up, and instead redirect such assets to initiatives… Read more »

Cementing the ‘building blocks’ of a China strategy

     

Neither China nor America seeks war, surely. But they are deliberately hurtling toward economic separationhttps://t.co/IQY975OSuw — The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 8, 2020 You might have hoped that a pandemic would… Read more »

Is the West losing the fight for democracy?

     

Coronavirus-related pressures are having a detrimental effect on democracies around the world, argues Steven Feldstein, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor. “Pandemic-fueled… Read more »

Democratic resilience: explaining stability and fragility

     

Democracies are better equipped to cope with crises like the current Covid-19 pandemic and at less risk of institutional breakdown than many commentators believe, new research suggests. Comparisons of the… Read more »

How to resist the authoritarian surge

     

In 2019, Brookings Institution senior fellow Robert Kagan authored a long-form essay in the Washington Post in which he argued that the era of the strongman is back. Authoritarianism is once again… Read more »

Locking Down or Rising Up? Protest movements adapt to COVID-19

     

With #COVID19 inflicting severe economic pain in countries around the world and brutally exposing governance failures, the numbers of unsettled people are on track to rise rather than fall despite… Read more »