Author Archives: DemDigest

Saving democracy from the managerial elite? The case for a new pluralism

     

Can digital infrastructure be restructured to respect individuals? Can democracy survive a lack of privacy and autonomy? Can the dignity of man survive an omnipresent state? asks Nadia Schadlow, a… Read more »

How (not) to advance democracy: Why liberalism works

     

Is democracy overrated? the conservative British philosopher Roger Scruton once asked.  “In my view, the idea that there is a single, one-size-fits-all solution to social and political conflict around the… Read more »

Hong Kong ban spotlights vanishing freedoms under Beijing pressure

     

The ongoing protests in Hong Kong, and the Chinese government response, influenced Taiwanese voters to deliver a sharp rebuke to Beijing and President Tsai’s defense of Taiwan’s autonomy, according to… Read more »

Kremlin kleptocracy’s lawfare undermining rule of law

     

  The scale of Russian interference in the English judiciary is such that it now constitutes a “critical national security threat” according to a prominent British lawyer. The observation by… Read more »

Why Taiwan’s emphatic rebuke terrifies China

     

Taiwan’s voters delivered a stinging rebuke of China’s rising authoritarianism on Saturday by re-electing President Tsai Ing-wen, who vowed to preserve the island’s sovereignty in the face of Beijing’s intensifying… Read more »

20th century dictators vs. 21st-century autocrats

     

What do Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Nicolae Ceausescu, Papa Doc Duvalier and Mengistu Haile Mariam have in common? The Economist asks. Frank Dikötter’s new book, “How to… Read more »

People, Processes and Politics: Countering violent extremism in fragile states

     

Radical Islamist extremist violence is wracking the fragile state of Burkina Faso and spreading east, The Washington Post reports: Nearly 1,000 civilians were killed in 2019 by local militias and… Read more »

‘Chaos Is the Point’: Russian disinfo undermining confidence in democracy

     

Can you win an election without digital skulduggery? the FT’s Gillian Tett asks in a must-read analysis. As the 2019 documentary The Great Hack shows, [recent election] campaigns featured a… Read more »

Liberal democracy ‘will not survive the 21st century’?

     

Authoritarian regimes are experience a resurgence globally. Various strains of ethno-nationalism-populism are displacing liberalism and the rise of an anti-liberal order globally has many observers wondering if the core tenets… Read more »

Idealpolitik vs. Realpolitik: Idealism or ‘realism with a moral face’?

     

How to temper idealism with the demands of responsible statecraft—without abandoning our commitment to democracy and human rights? is the question posed by Ivan Krastev, the Henry A. Kissinger Chair… Read more »