Category: Philippines

When democracies hit midlife crisis

     

Democracy in the Philippines turned 34 last week. The nation commemorated the peaceful mass demonstration that ousted the dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power, analyst Nicole Curato observes. A group of protesters… Read more »

Explaining Asia’s turn to illiberal democracy

     

The return of the Rajapaksa brothers to power in Sri Lanka highlights a broader and more alarming trend: the rise of illiberal democracy in South Asia as Sri Lanka joins… Read more »

Shining light on ‘an existential moment’ for Asian democracies

     

Asian democracy is facing a “dystopian future” as scaling back in U.S. engagement and leadership is empowering forces that undermine democratic norms and processes. The warning came as Asian democracy… Read more »

Do Southeast Asia elections signal a consolidation of illiberal rule?

     

  Since the fall of the Indonesian dictator Suharto in 1998, civil society has flourished under the country’s burgeoning democracy. Observers even began calling Indonesia the most democratic nation in… Read more »

‘How To Hack A Democracy’: Are disruptive populists the new normal?

     

A group of philanthropies working with Facebook Inc to study the social network’s impact on democracy threatened on Tuesday to quit, saying the company had failed to make data available… Read more »

‘Autocracy Now’ – personalized authoritarianism

     

  The leading figures on the world stage today practice a brutal, smash-mouth politics, a personalized authoritarianism, notes Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose. Old-school strongmen, they do whatever is needed to… Read more »

Weaponizing law is ‘draining democracy dry’ – Philippines journalist Maria Ressa

     

Award-winning Philippines journalist Maria Ressa told CNN that her arrest on “cyber libel” charges is an example of how the law is being “weaponized” against critics of the country’s President… Read more »

Polarization a key factor in democracy’s ‘alarming’ decline

     

The latest Freedom in the World report – compiled by more than 100 experts and drawing on data from 209 countries – describes an “ominous” global erosion of democratic values… Read more »

Time’s Persons of the Year – The Guardians and the War on Truth

     

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in October at his country’s Istanbul consulate, was on Tuesday, December 11, named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” alongside several other journalists under siege in… Read more »