Category: Analysis

Serbia’s ‘Orbanization’: Vucic heads towards competitive authoritarianism

     

  Serbians are finally rising up against President Aleksandar Vucic’s regime, note analysts Boban Stojanović and Fernando Casal Bértoa. For the last five months, massive protests against his reign, and especially… Read more »

Weaponizing advice? Western experts legitimizing autocrats

     

Experts play valuable and highly visible roles advising leaders in wealthy liberal democracies and international institutions. But far less is known about what they do—and to what effect—for authoritarian regimes… Read more »

Pro-democracy veteran explains why ‘democracy will arrive in China’

     

For almost 40 years, Martin Lee has been promoting democracy in Hong Kong, The South China Morning Post reports. He helped draft Hong Kong’s Basic Law: the city’s mini-constitution that… Read more »

‘The Demon in Democracy’? Resisting the illiberal temptation

     

Nearly fifty years after the Soviet empire’s collapse, the few remaining states adhering to the Stalinist model hold little allure, notes Gabriel Schoenfeld, the author of, among other books, Necessary… Read more »

Balkans split between East and West (but still room for engagement)

     

With the exception of Kosovo (53 percent), respondents from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), North Macedonia or Serbia generally do not feel that they belong definitively to either West or East, according to a new poll by the… Read more »

Kremlin advancing political agenda by crushing dissent

     

The Russian government has created a series of often ill-defined laws that threatened fines or even jail time for broad categories of banned content. The authorities have thrown the book… Read more »

‘Information ops kill chain’ can stop disinformation drowning democracy

     

  Is disinformation drowning democracy? Former privacy tsars and technology experts have warned the major political parties they must dramatically strengthen their cybersecurity to protect the growing mountains of private… Read more »

Signs of redemption in Arab Spring’s ‘second phase’?

     

What is the connection between Algeria, Egypt and Sudan, and do the rising protests worry the region’s autocratic leaders, France24 asks (above). In Algeria and Sudan, the protesters hold strong… Read more »

How Kazakhstan’s transition is playing out

     

Kazakhstan’s dictatorship appears to have all of the necessary institutions in place to facilitate a smooth transition after Nursultan Nazarbayev. The regime is set up to benefit from the presence of… Read more »