Author Archives: DemDigest

Turkey’s Erdogan getting off democracy train?

     

Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.) presented itself as a Western, reformist, neo-liberal and secular party, and, as late as 2012, 16 EU… Read more »

Tiananmen ‘Tank Man’ image in danger

     

The sale of Corbis, a photography archive owned by Bill Gates, gives the new owner, Visual China Group, control over photographs of immense cultural and commercial value, including Marilyn Monroe… Read more »

Saudis facing similar problems to collapsing Soviet Union

     

Saudi Arabia has ordered the segregation of men and women in local council meetings, in a setback to women’s rights in the ultraconservative kingdom, The Wall Street Journal reports. The… Read more »

Political turbulence: 21st century parties and social media

     

  Social media do shape collective action through, for example, “micro-donations” which make it easy to join a cause, says Professor Helen Margetts, co-author of a new book, “Political Turbulence”:… Read more »

Venezuela – too late to avoid catastrophe

     

  As markets brace themselves for the negative effects of the decline in oil prices, Venezuela will probably be the first big domino to fall, notes Ricardo Hausmann, the director… Read more »

Human Rights Without Borders

     

The Wei Jingsheng Foundation is pleased to host the second “Human Rights Without Borders” exhibition and award ceremony of the “Human Rights and Freedom Defender” Prize, which will be awarded to House… Read more »

Xi’s new ‘core’ leader status highlights China’s power struggle

     

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has already grasped more power more quickly than his two recent predecessors, and he has shown a taste for audacious decisions and a loathing for dissent…. Read more »

Egyptian writer caught in government crackdown

     

The only reason Khadeega Gaafar knows that authorities extended her husband’s stay in prison is because he hasn’t come back home, The Washington Post’s Erin Cunningham writes: Gaafar’s husband, Egyptian… Read more »

Countering the globalization of jihad

     

Terror attacks in recent months — some claimed by Isis or its adherents — suggest that the Sunni Islamist extremist group and its violent, ultra-conservative ideology are successfully extending their… Read more »

Threat to liberal democracy’s primacy overstated?

     

The fact that the world’s richest country after World War II had a liberal economy and system of government had important implications not only for the creation of an open… Read more »