Category: Analysis

How China shut down the Internet

     

  In 2000, President Bill Clinton gave a speech in which he said that the Chinese government’s efforts to control the Internet would be as successful as efforts to “nail Jello… Read more »

Cuba says Obama trip won’t alter `revolutionary’ regime

     

The Cuban government today said it won’t renounce its “revolutionary and anti-imperialist” ideals as relations with the U.S. thaw ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit to the Communist island this… Read more »

EU surrendering soft power with ‘morally bankrupt’ Turkey deal

     

The EU-Turkey deal lauded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a possible “breakthrough” in the refugee crisis met with considerable criticism after being presented to the European Parliament on Wednesday,… Read more »

Why can’t Ukraine establish the rule of law?

     

Why is Ukraine having so much trouble establishing a state governed by the rule of law? According to analyst Susan Stewart, maintaining a legal vacuum obviously serves the interests of… Read more »

Russia’s Bad Example

     

    For decades Russia remained a country without an ideology to export. Now Putin’s Russia has realized that it can capitalize on its foreign policy goals of sowing democratic… Read more »

Iran’s election wasn’t about moderation or democracy

     

The elections in Iran confirm that the Syrian crisis has taught Iranians who are otherwise eager for change a few lessons, Harvard University researcher Amir Mahdavi writes for The Washington… Read more »

Labor unrest surges in China

     

  China’s ruling Communist Party is facing an upsurge in labor militancy and social unrest, notes China Digital Times: Amid an economic downturn and a plan to streamline the state-owned sector, the Chinese… Read more »

Russians not fundamentally illiberal – unlike Putin

     

Contrary to some analysts’ suggestions that Russian culture and history have fostered a predisposition towards authoritarian rule, new research suggests otherwise. The evidence emerging from a cross-country comparison of attitudes… Read more »

States of disorder: the new world order

     

As the global economy transcends borders and Isis raises its flag, could the very nature of “states” be changing? asks Philip Bobbitt, the author of “The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace… Read more »

Russia, Ukraine and the ‘surrealism of realism’

     

Before the war in Ukraine, respected Russia experts have long claimed that Russia had already become a “post-imperial” state and stressed that they saw no grounds for adversarial relations between… Read more »