Media and Civic Engagement: From Protests to Dialogue
While civil society and the media are often painted primarily as forces of opposition, a growing group of scholars and practitioners makes the case for their vital roles in building… Read more »
Author Archives: DemDigest
Civil Society Under Assault: Repression and Responses
The closing of civic space has become a defining feature of political life in an ever-increasing number of countries, notes Saskia Brechenmacher, an associate fellow in Carnegie’s Democracy and Rule… Read more »
Extremists threaten Indonesia’s moderate ‘civil Islam’
The jailing for blasphemy this month of Jakarta’s former governor raised fears that the moderate traditions of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation were under siege. Now the government is… Read more »
Iran polarized ahead of pseudo-election
After an unexpectedly close race between President Hassan Rouhani, the pragmatic incumbent, and hardline challenger Ebrahim Raisi (left), ordinary Iranians on the eve of the vote appeared united only in… Read more »
Russia’s Cold War habit
A few weeks ago, Mikhail Gorbachev – the last leader of the Soviet Union and the man who did more than anyone to end the Cold War – told the German newspaper Bild that it is… Read more »
Fragile states an early-warning signal for potential conflict
2016 was a dismal year for liberal internationalism. But a new index of global “fragility” by the Fund for Peace (FfP) think-tank suggests that, overall, the world did not become… Read more »
Iran election exposes Islamic Republic’s façade and true face
The presidential election in Iran this Friday is being billed as yet another contest in which a spirited but ineffectual reformer is fighting it out with a hard-boiled theocrat. Meanwhile,… Read more »
North Korea’s apocalyptic propagandists
The prickliness of North Korea’s messaging also can be read as an evolutionary strategy, akin to a hedgehog showing its spines to protect its pink underbelly, Hannah Beech writes for… Read more »
E.U.’s democratic values ‘up for grabs’ in Poland
Poland’s alleged slide from democracy came under scrutiny from fellow European Union states on Tuesday, with some openly questioning the nationalist government in Warsaw’s commitment to EU values, Reuters reports:… Read more »
Ukraine sanctions Russian social media amid Crimea’s virtual blackout
Ukraine has moved to block access to top Russian social media sites and search-and-email portals, adding them to a list of companies and individuals sanctioned over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea… Read more »