Iraq and Lebanon elections energize civil society
The elections in Iraq and Lebanon earlier this month present a fragile but important counterpoint to a region in turmoil, notes Tamara Cofman Wittes, a Senior Fellow at Brookings’ Center… Read more »
Category: Analysis
Centrists are the most hostile to democracy?
Across Europe and North America, support for democracy is in decline. To explain this trend, conventional wisdom points to the political extremes. Both the far left and the far right… Read more »
Democracies in strategic competition with revisionist authoritarian powers
Russia isn’t the only authoritarian state to exploit new technologies for the purpose of undermining democracy and advancing illiberal values, analysts suggest. China’s planned development of a “new digital Silk… Read more »
Resilience the key to winning normative war with Russia
Is Russia succeeding in destroying American democracy, as one Washington Post columnist suggests? Much of the global conversation around “fake news” has centered on the United States. Yet it increasingly… Read more »
How Democracy Ends – ‘in its sleep’?
Central Europe is going backwards, with populism, nationalism and “illiberal democracy” on the rise. That is the consensus among many opinion leaders in Western Europe and North America, notes CEPA’s… Read more »
China ‘donor bombshell’ reveals Beijing’s sharp power influence ops
A Chinese-Australian real estate developer “co-conspired to bribe” a senior United Nations official, according to claims made in Federal Parliament: Andrew Hastie, who chairs the powerful intelligence and security committee,… Read more »
Russia’s disinformation reveals, exploits democratic deficits
Russian finance threatens to undermine democratic institutions and national security, according to a new report from an influential parliamentary committee in the UK. “The government cannot afford to turn… Read more »
Mustafa Dzhemilev: Crimean Tatars ‘known for history of nonviolent resistance’
Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, this week claimed to have discovered and terminated the activity of a so-called ‘extremist group’, allegedly created by Crimean Tatar leaders Mustafa Dzhemilev (above)… Read more »
Bernard Lewis, R.I.P. – opposed Arab autocrats, studied Islam-democracy relationship
Bernard Lewis, an eminent historian of Islam who traced the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to a declining Islamic civilization, a controversial view that influenced world opinion and helped… Read more »
Impatient dictators: ‘How to Rig an Election’
Authoritarian states are using all-too familiar constitutional mechanisms to consolidate power, according to activist-journalists Tamara Grigoryeva and Ismail Djalilov. Across Eurasia, snap elections happen rather frequently, they write for Open… Read more »