Category: Authoritarianism

Post-Erdoganism? Istanbul election shows resilience of Turkey’s democracy

     

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is grappling with the fallout of the ruling party’s big defeat in the Istanbul mayoral election, and his government faces pressure to release political prisoners,… Read more »

Contesting Democracy: Can post-ideological ‘Macronism’ stem the populist tide?

     

Europe is in a tough spot, as it tries to reconcile the rise of populism with the need to confront migration, climate change, the digital revolution, the structure of its… Read more »

Post-protest reforms a ‘huge achievement’ for Georgia’s angry democracy?

     

The leader of Georgia’s ruling party said Monday that the ex-Soviet nation will hold the next parliamentary election based entirely on a proportionate system, fulfilling a key demand of anti-government… Read more »

Dictatorships always a step away from legitimacy crisis

     

  A ”third wave” of autocratization which first gained momentum in the mid 1990’s has developed across the world, says the annual report of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project…. Read more »

Russia’s soft power set to divide Council of Europe’s democracies

     

The late Russian president Boris Yeltsin once said his country’s entry into the Council of Europe would help create a “new, greater Europe, free from dividing lines” and “united by common… Read more »

‘Warlord democrats’ threaten Africa’s democratic moment?

     

In the 60-plus years since the countries of sub-Saharan Africa started becoming independent, democracy there has advanced unevenly. Even as some countries in the region have grown into success stories,… Read more »

China’s new media dilemma: profit in online dissent?

     

What explains China’s almost unique path to wealth without democracy? Fareed Zakaria asks. Yuen Yuen Ang of the University of Michigan argues that over the past few decades, China has… Read more »

How Hungary’s bright-eyed Fidesz liberals became populist reactionaries

     

To say that Hungary is no longer a democracy is a stark claim and I have thought, read and looked hard before making it, notes Oxford University’s Timothy Garton Ash…. Read more »