Author Archives: DemDigest

Vietnam’s punitive authorities target democracy advocates

     

  Vietnam’s authorities should quash the politically motivated conviction of pro-democracy activist Nguyen Van Tuc and immediately release him without conditions, Human Rights Watch said today. The court of appeals… Read more »

Identity politics is ‘pulling modern democracy apart’

     

If there is a single lesson to be learned from the contemporary Middle East, it is that national identity is critical to the success of any political system. That identity… Read more »

A Warning From Europe: The Worst Is Yet to Come

     

Monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy, democracy—these were all familiar to Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago. But the illiberal one-party state, now found all over the world—think of China, Venezuela, Zimbabwe—was first developed by… Read more »

How to push back against neo-authoritarianism

     

With neo-authoritarianism on the rise, the old assumptions undergirding a common set of Western values just won’t do, a prominent analyst suggests. Framing the primary goal of American strategy as… Read more »

Countering Russia’s ‘active measures’: assessing new tools

     

Russia is using the same disinformation playbook to sow doubt about the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal and his daughter as it did in the case of Alexander Litvinenko’s death,… Read more »

Building Pluralistic Inclusive States Post-Arab Spring

     

The political and social upheaval ignited by the Arab uprisings shows little sign of abating, the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) notes. U.S. and international policymakers continue to struggle… Read more »

Mark 9/11 anniversary with new strategy to prevent spread of extremism

     

The United States needs a new national security strategy to prevent the spread of extremism in fragile states, say Rep. Lee Hamilton and Gov. Thomas Kean, co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission.  They led… Read more »

‘Kleptocratic conspiracy’ pushing Guatemala toward authoritarianism

     

Hundreds of peasant farmers and indigenous Maya blocked a major highway in Guatemala’s western highlands on Monday, demanding that President Jimmy Morales reverse a policy aimed at forcing a U.N.-backed… Read more »