Category: Analysis

A new way to hack democracy? How to deal with the ‘Digital Disinformation Mess’

     

The rise of political impersonation threatens a core aspect of democracy: the process by which federal agencies canvass public opinion before enacting new regulations, BuzzFeed’s Jeremy Singer-Vine and Kevin Collier report:… Read more »

‘Coups and Revolutions’: non-state actors, dysfunctional states impede Arab democracy

     

The slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi “has become the symbol of our collective moral conscience, the voice for the voiceless in the Middle East,” his fiancée Hatice Cengiz wrote in… Read more »

No trade-off between values and interests in advancing democracy

     

At a time of partisan polarization, are our divisions really so entrenched and unbridgeable? What if we had civil and evidence-based dialogue across our great divides of party, ideology and… Read more »

Hong Kong protests ‘raining on China’s parade’: clash of ideologies gives the lie to 70th anniversary

     

China’s President Xi Jinping presided over the country’s National Day, marking 70 years of Communist Party rule. The military parade included 15,000 personnel, 160 aircraft, and hundreds of weapons—some new—in… Read more »

Putin in ‘political desert’: What’s the next step for Russia’s opposition?

     

Vladimir Putin has now been in power in Russia as president and prime minister for twenty years. The local elections held in September provide an opportunity to evaluate the results… Read more »

How to prevail against China

     

The United States is reshaping how it uses foreign aid in order to compete with China. The executive branch and Congress are exploring efforts — some controversial and still few on details —… Read more »

Tunisia’s democracy hangs in the balance

     

Tunisia’s moderate Islamist Ennahda party will seek to govern alone or in partnership with “the forces of the revolution”, its leader said on Friday, hinting at an end to five… Read more »

Reinvent democracy as populists ‘weaponize the will of the people’

     

The political arguments made by some contemporary politicians use the language of democracy, but the underlying logic has more in common with populist authoritarianism – a strategy that could be… Read more »

‘Gems, Warlords and Mercenaries’: Russia’s sharp power playbook in Africa

     

Russia lacks China’s muscle when it comes to trade and infrastructure. But it has other assets. One is a shrewd appreciation of the political needs of African dictators, another is… Read more »

Renewing the promise of reconciling political Islam and democracy?

     

  Jamal Khashoggi and I disagreed on almost all political issues, but we agreed on one thing: that the Arab world had profoundly changed in ways that rendered the old… Read more »