The biggest threat to Gabon’s president
When he was sworn in for a second seven-year term last September, Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, renewed a call for all political actors “to sit together and find solutions” after an… Read more »
Author Archives: DemDigest
Cuba’s economy flat-lines: revolution is over, but dictatorship lives on
Cuba’s insular socialist paradise supposedly offers a social safety-net, cradle to grave. But it is full of holes, The Economist reports: Medical care is free, but most medicine is not…. Read more »
How to curb kleptocrats’ ‘existential threat to democracy’
The irony is that in the century since the Russian Revolution, the “soft” democracies have endured, and the communist system that has collapsed. But the inheritors of the NKVD mantle—the… Read more »
How to counter autocrats’ information warfare
The U.S. and other Western democracies appear woefully unprepared to blunt or deter Russian propaganda, says the University of Houston’s Chris Bronk. The Russians have all sorts of domestic information… Read more »
The subtleties – and limits – of China’s soft power
The Chinese government has been trying to sell the country itself as a brand—one that has the ability to attract people from other countries in the way that America does… Read more »
Cambodia’s Communist comrades now capitalist cadres
For years, Tep Khunnal was the devoted personal secretary of Pol Pot, staying loyal to the charismatic ultracommunist leader even as Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge movement collapsed around them in the… Read more »
As democracy retreats, famine recurs
The economist and philosopher Amartya Sen wrote that famines do not take place in true democracies. If democracy is in worldwide retreat, famines could make a gruesome comeback, The FT’s David… Read more »
Turkey heading for dictatorship, exposing underlying ideology
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Europeans on Wednesday that they would no longer be able to walk safely in the street if Western politicians continued with perceived provocations against Turkish… Read more »
London attack highlights challenge of jihadist radicalization
Today’s terrorist attack in London occurred on the anniversary of similar attacks in Brussels, which provides an opportunity to reflect on the challenge posed by jihadist radicalisation, write Alexander Ritzmann… Read more »
Angola ignores corruption links as activist threatened
Angola’s authorities have ignored a Brazilian firm’s admission that it paid $50m in bribes to secure contracts in the country, despite demands from watchdogs that it join international investigations into… Read more »