Author Archives: DemDigest

West must identify, exploit asymmetric advantages over autocrats

     

With the re-emergence of great power competition,  Russia and China are pursuing asymmetric strategies against the West, using the advantages of authoritarianism—secrecy, deception, a lack of legal or moral constraints—to… Read more »

‘Revolution in Ruins’: Venezuela ‘on brink of lasting change’

     

In less than a month, Juan Guaido has gone from a virtual unknown in Venezuelan politics to the country’s most-watched figure, assuming the presidency of the opposition-controlled congress and briefly… Read more »

Ukraine honors democracy advocate Nadia Diuk

     

Remarks – Nadia Diuk – Ukraine’s Convoluted Transition from National Endowment for Democracy on Vimeo. Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has honored Nadia Diuk (above), Senior Advisor at the National Endowment for… Read more »

Putin’s Russia is at ‘a dead end’

     

When the Ukrainian Orthodox Church broke from Russia’s, it dealt a blow to President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to portray his country as one people with a single identity, argues Michael… Read more »

New intelligence strategy highlights threats to liberal democratic order

     

The United States will be challenged in coming years by nations that exploit “the weakening of the post-WWII international order and dominance of Western democratic ideals” and “increasingly isolationist tendencies… Read more »

‘Democratic dream’ in South Caucasus?

     

Democratic bright spots are emerging in Armenia and Georgia despite their being wedged between less-than-democratic regional powers—Iran, Russia and Turkey, note analysts Denis Corboy, William Courtney and Kenneth Yalowitz. Both countries seek… Read more »

Understanding Central Europe’s illiberal metamorphosis

     

To understand Central Europe ’s illiberal metamorphosis, bear in mind that the region’s political imperative for almost three decades was “Imitate the West!” That process went by different names –… Read more »

Nathan Glazer, R.I.P.

     

2009 Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture: Nathan Glazer from National Endowment for Democracy on Vimeo. Nathan Glazer, a prominent sociologist and public intellectual who assisted on a classic study of conformity,… Read more »

Are social media platforms ‘rotting democracy from within’?

     

  Facebook has entered a new era of cautious glasnost, inviting researchers to look ‘under the hood’ of various aspects of its operations, and understand how it formulates and implements… Read more »