Turkey’s democratic regression: ‘pushback will have to come from within’
The night of July 15 marked a distinct moment in Turkish democratic history as hundreds of thousands of Turks took to the streets to defy a coup attempt, notes A…. Read more »
Category: Analysis
A Dark Age for European Democracy?
In recent months, nationalists and populists on both sides of the Atlantic have challenged the values that have been at the heart of the transatlantic alliance of liberal democracies for… Read more »
Kazakhstan moves to liquidate labor unions
Kazakhstan should immediately end legal moves to liquidate an independent trade union confederation, Human Rights Watch said today. An economic court in Shymkent, in southern Kazakhstan, on December 5, 2016,… Read more »
Manipulating history serves new ideological trends
From Ukraine, to Belarus, to Poland and Lithuania, historical narratives of communism, World War II, the Holocaust, and the Holodomor—Ukraine’s Terror-Famine—are being reviewed, revised, and in many cases manipulated to… Read more »
Countering jihadist extremism: ideology matters
Many Western jihadists are not necessarily motivated by a specific group but rather the rhetoric, ideology and activities of the wider global jihadist movement, often referred to as the Salafi-jihadist… Read more »
Unraveling Cuba’s Gordian Knot
In the wake of Fidel Castro’s death, it may be helpful to examine the empirical evidence of the transition experience of the Central and Eastern European countries when the Soviet… Read more »
Did Arab World miss chance to democratize?
Nearly six years after the Arab Spring began in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, democracy promotion has once again receded on the list of U.S. priorities in the Middle East, notes J…. Read more »
Millennials not skeptics of democracy
Citizens of established democracies are becoming skeptical of democracy’s worth, according to a recent Journal of Democracy article by political scientists Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk. But analyst Jeff… Read more »
What’s the state of China’s dissidents and non-state actors ?
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher Yu Jianrong, a rural sociologist known for his social commentary and vocal advocacy for political reform, recently adopted the tone found in central Party edicts… Read more »
Illiberalism’s appeal in Europe and Eurasia
In the West, the rise of illiberalism is taking place within a democratic framework. In most Eurasian states, on the other hand, authoritarianism is the dominant political system, thus enabling… Read more »