Mapping digital disinformation
If digital platforms are the “new battleground” for democracy, as the new 2019 “Freedom on the Net” report from Freedom House suggests, the experience of Pakistan demonstrates the challenges of… Read more »
Author Archives: DemDigest
Gautam Adhikari, R.I.P.
Democracy advocates are mourning the loss of veteran journalist and analyst Gautam Adhikari, who died in Washington, D.C., this week, the Times of India reports. The former Times of India… Read more »
New social movement challenging Iraq’s sectarian politics
The largest mass protests to hit Iraq and Lebanon in decades are posing a direct challenge to the influence Iran has gained in both countries as demonstrators seek to overturn… Read more »
Reversing CEE democratic backsliding a Sisyphean task
Countries in Central and Eastern Europe that made significant gains in building their new democracies following the Cold War are now experiencing a crisis of illiberalism that is weakening the… Read more »
Populists pushing democracies towards deadlock
Recent elections in Spain, Israel and Germany failed to resolve political paralysis and produce governing coalitions. Each country’s situation has its own intricacies and complications. But there are also two general… Read more »
What’s behind Latin America’s ‘Autumn of Discontent’?
Latin America was primed to explode. Economic malaise, social media, corruption, and foreign meddling combined to fuel raging protests from Chile to Haiti. What’s next for beleaguered democratic regimes in… Read more »
‘Trojan horse for tyranny’: Disinformation boosting digital authoritarianism
Digital platforms have emerged as the “new battleground” for democracy, with disinformation the most commonly used tactic to undermine elections, according to a leading watchdog. “Populists and far-right leaders have… Read more »
The rallying cry we need for democratic renewal
The current global situation is starkly different from the optimistic vision of the inexorable progress of democracy that President Ronald Reagan projected in his celebrated Westminster Address of June… Read more »
Democracies vs. dictatorships: Where’s the Grand Strategy?
Now is the time to think faster, more creatively and more strategically about shaping the future before losing too many of the gains in the spread of democracy and prosperity… Read more »
The Global State of Democracy 2019: Addressing the Ills, Reviving the Promise
Is democracy broken? Vox’s Sean illing asks. Harvard politics professor Daniel Ziblatt, co-author (along with Steven Levitsky) of 2018’s How Democracies Die, explains why democracies collapse, what norms are most essential… Read more »