Category: Analysis

Alfred C. Stepan, R.I.P.

     

Democracy advocates and scholars are mourning the passing of Alfred C. Stepan. Stepan, a prominent political scientist who served as dean of the School of International and Public Affairs from… Read more »

Kurdish vote reflects Middle East’s ‘existential quandary’

     

  Turkey threatened potentially crippling restrictions on oil trading with Iraqi Kurds on Thursday after they backed independence from Baghdad in a referendum that has alarmed Ankara as it faces… Read more »

Community of Democracies needed now more than ever

     

  When the Community of Democracies first gathered in Warsaw seventeen years ago, no one could be certain that the Community would continue for very long, let alone develop and… Read more »

Russians can change – not condemned by ‘cultural code’

     

Russians are not so restricted by a“’cultural code’ of serfdom and paternalism” that the only way forward is to rely on “an enlightened ruler who bases himself on a group… Read more »

How to defend against Russia’s information warfare

     

Poland, like many European countries, has been targeted by Russian propagandists with disinformation campaigns. Experts say the effort is aimed at the country’s political discussion. They say many false accounts were opened… Read more »

Why liberal democracies avoid war, reduce civil conflict

     

International Peace Day is an appropriate occasion for assessing democracy’s contribution to peace and security. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, also known as the Paris Peace Pact, does not have a good… Read more »

Liberal democracies particularly vulnerable to information warfare

     

The joint Russian-Belarusian military exercise ‘Zapad 2017’ is a form of information warfare, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė told the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “The Kremlin is rehearsing… Read more »

Defending sovereignty vs. promoting democracy?

     

There was an echo of George W. Bush’s democracy promotion agenda in President Donald Trump’s address to the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly. But unlike Mr. Bush, this… Read more »