Author Archives: DemDigest

Time’s Persons of the Year – The Guardians and the War on Truth

     

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in October at his country’s Istanbul consulate, was on Tuesday, December 11, named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” alongside several other journalists under siege in… Read more »

Rethinking approaches to Bosnia and Herzegovina

     

More than two decades ago, the peace process in Dayton ended the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II and created what some consider to be the most complicated… Read more »

‘Disentangling Grand Strategy’ for advancing democracy

     

Many across the political spectrum are arguing for reinvigorating the Western alliance to contend with resurgent geopolitical competition with China and Russia. But they appear ambivalent, conflicted, or divided over… Read more »

‘Realizing Rights over Repression in Iran’ – the case for Magnitsky sanctions

     

  Iran has sentenced two human rights lawyers to six years in prison and a third to 13 years, AP reports: The Arman daily said Ghasem Sholeh-Saadi and Arash Keikhosravi were… Read more »

Lyudmila M. Alexeyeva, R.I.P.

     

Democracy and human rights advocates are mourning the loss of Lyudmila M. Alexeyeva, a leader of the Russian human rights movement in the Soviet Union and in the era of… Read more »

Projecting Islamic ‘soft power’ in wake of failed Arab Spring

     

U.S. disengagement from the daily irritations of Middle East politics has encouraged Arab allies—particularly Saudi Arabia—to adopt more aggressive foreign policies, which has in turn required an ideological language for… Read more »

Inside China’s audacious global propaganda campaign

     

Beijing is buying up media outlets and training scores of foreign journalists as part of a worldwide propaganda campaign of astonishing scope and ambition, say Louisa Lim and Julia Bergin. China’s rapid… Read more »

How democracies slide into authoritarianism

     

In “The Captive Mind,” Czeslaw Milosz documented the collusion that accompanies democracy’s collapse. While his message holds special relevance for those living in autocracies, its resonance extends to both free… Read more »

‘Neo-autocracy’: turning democracy into a tool of oppression

     

Władysław Frasyniuk (above) championed democracy in the face of Communist rule in Poland in the 80s. Now, he warns the freedom he fought for is starting to slip away. (The… Read more »