Author Archives: DemDigest

Liberal democracy vs. illiberalism

     

Many scholars and pundits have recently declared that democracy is in crisis. According to analyses that draw on data from the Varieties of Democracy Project, the average level of democracy across the world has not necessary declined,… Read more »

Recession and renewal in Europe’s democracies?

     

Despite illiberal trends in Europe, surveys suggest citizens are becoming more engaged. The overall picture is one of both crisis and renewal, according to Carnegie analysts Richard Youngs and Sarah… Read more »

Evolving Terror: how to roll back innovative jihadists’ ‘toxic ideologies’

     

It was a quarter of a century ago this week, on February 26, 1993, when a group of jihadist terrorists, some of whom had trained in Afghanistan, tried to bring down the… Read more »

Rights activists mourn death of Li Baiguang, Chinese democracy advocate

     

A well-known Chinese rights lawyer died suddenly in hospital of liver failure on Monday (Feb 26), Reuters reports: Li Baiguang, a Christian human rights lawyer who had met regularly with high-level officials… Read more »

Democracies need bipartisan, holistic response to Russian ‘full spectrum’ operations

     

Vladimir Putin doesn’t tweet and he claims he doesn’t have a smartphone. But he has something likely more important than gadgets — long experience in the KGB and its post-Soviet… Read more »

China’s digital totalitarian state enjoying a ‘golden field for propaganda’

     

  A “shocking new report” from Canada’s intelligence service cites China’s domestically-focused propaganda as an example of the “total” information warfare posing an existential threat to Western democratic pluralism. Ever… Read more »

Total information warfare an ‘existential threat’ to Western pluralism

     

In a “shocking new report,” the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is warning that the spread of disinformation online poses an existential threat to “Western democratic pluralism,” according to The… Read more »

Russian disinformation distorts American and European democracy

     

The use of disinformation—“active measures”, in the KGB jargon* of Vladimir Putin’s professional past—to weaken the West was a constant of Soviet policy, one that the would-be victims fought back… Read more »

‘God That Failed’ former extremists now champion liberal democracy

     

Just as ‘The God That Failed’ generation of former Communists became some of the most articulate and effective opponents of Soviet totalitarianism, some former radical Islamists are emerging as champions… Read more »