A Multipronged Counter-ISIL Strategy
The U.S. counter-ISIL strategy must recognize the long-term nature of the global violent jihadi threat, according to a new RAND analysis. Diplomatic and military actions should focus on reducing the… Read more »
Author Archives: DemDigest
How authoritarians consolidate
The murder in Yangon of Ko Ni (left), one of Myanmar’s most prominent Muslim voices and a legal adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, is ominous for the country’s democratic transition, The Financial Times… Read more »
Quality of Pakistan’s democracy on the slide
The year 2016 has seen Pakistan’s Quality of Democracy slide by 4 percentage points from 2015, according to a report released by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency… Read more »
Arab Fractures: Citizens, States, and Social Contracts
Long-standing pillars of the Arab order—authoritarian bargains and hydrocarbon rents—are collapsing as political institutions struggle with the rising demands of growing populations, says a new report from the Carnegie Endowment…. Read more »
Cuba should release political prisoner, says Amnesty
Five days after Fidel Castro’s death, human rights defender Eduardo Cardet was detained and has since been held in provisional detention in Holguín, south-east Cuba. He is a prisoner of… Read more »
China and the embarrassment of Western democracy
The turmoil of democracy in the West represent a shift in the balance of soft power in the world. Europe and America, in confusion and uncertainty, today look unimpressive. It… Read more »
Countering authoritarianism in cyberspace
Authoritarian regimes are increasingly adept at fragmenting and controlling the internet for purposes of censorship, surveillance, and internal and external propaganda and misinformation, note analysts Mario Loyola and James K…. Read more »
China: CCP’s survival strategy ‘exhausted’?
Some may dismiss Gao Zhisheng’s prediction of the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party as the wishful thinking of a persecuted dissident, says Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment… Read more »
The Enduring Significance of Charter 77
The Czech Republic’s successful transition from communism to democracy would not have been possible without the activists who provided a courageous voice in favor of political and intellectual freedom and… Read more »
Middle class bolsters Pakistan’s fragile democracy
Pakistan, often in the headlines for terrorism, coups and poverty, has developed something else in recent years: a burgeoning middle class that is fueling economic growth and bolstering a fragile… Read more »