Author Archives: DemDigest

Managed Confrontation: policy takes aim at illicit Russian cash

     

The financial sectors of the UK and other Western democracies “have helped to facilitate the authoritarianism and systemic corruption that blights Russia,” according to a new analysis from Chatham House,… Read more »

‘Rogue actors’ making digital technology incompatible with democracy

     

  The internet is the technology paradox writ more monstrous than ever. It’s a nonpareil tool for learning, roving and constructive community-building. But it’s unrivaled, too, in the spread of… Read more »

Voters prepared to trade democracy for security?

     

The crushing victory of right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Sunday’s runoff presidential election was in large part due to the electorate’s security concerns and anxiety over political instability, observers suggest…. Read more »

Bellingcat – ‘a thorn in the Kremlin’s side’

     

The investigative website Bellingcat has found itself at the heart of some of the Kremlin’s touchiest affairs over the last few years—starting with the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern… Read more »

Iranian Repression: Architects of Human Rights Abuse in the Islamic Republic

     

“While representing political prisoners in the Soviet Union 45 years ago, I noted that ‘vacation time in the West is prison time in the Soviet Union,’ with the regime imprisoning… Read more »

Maintaining the legacy of an ‘extraordinary champion’ for ‘Tibet

     

Lodi Gyari, the Dalai Lama’s right-hand diplomat who led rare negotiations with China that proved frustrating and fruitless, was effectively a foreign minister for the Tibetan spiritual leader and became… Read more »

Defending Digital Democracy via Election Cybersecurity Scorecard

     

More than 120 state and local election officials, communications directors, IT managers, and secretaries of state ran drills simulating security catastrophes that could happen on the worst Election Day imaginable,… Read more »

How to counter democracy’s vulnerability to populist demagogues

     

Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential victory in Brazil is part of a growing trend of authoritarian leaders being democratically elected across the world, notes Latin America expert Pablo Galarce. “[What] has happened… Read more »

Egypt’s ‘New Realism’: Sisi turns to autocrats for allies

     

Anecdotally, Egyptians appear far more concerned about security and economic issues than they are about their diminished civil liberties, argues Barak Barfi, a research fellow at the New America Foundation…. Read more »