Category: Authoritarianism

The spell is broken: ‘Uberisation’ or renewal for Central Europe’s civil society?

     

After three decades of its functioning in a democracy, civil society in Central Europe has found itself in the need of contemplating its next direction, notes analyst Oľga Gyarfášová. There are… Read more »

Why Solidarity prevailed: commitment to democratic norms

     

Karol Modzelewski, a historian who became a driving force in Solidarity, the labor movement that helped topple the Communist regime in Poland, and its first spokesman, died on April 28… Read more »

What – or who – is holding back Sudan’s transition?

     

Sudan’s alliance of opposition and protest groups held a general strike on Tuesday as tensions mounted with the country’s military rulers over the transition to democracy, Reuters reports. Pro-democracy and civil society… Read more »

Tiananmen legacy? China’s new authoritarian equilibrium

     

In the realm of global power distribution, as in any area where human agency remains paramount, trends need not become outcomes, notes Andrew A. Michta, dean of the College of… Read more »

Mainstream must avoid populists’ Faustian embrace

     

  Liberal democrats should avoid the populists’ Faustian embrace, research suggests. Cosying up to populists rarely ends well for moderates; political scientists who have studied such things have warned of… Read more »

Modi’s ‘majoritarian state’ threatens India’s multi-party democracy

     

This week’s election in the world’s two most populous democratic land masses — India and Europe — confirmed the global advance of ethno-nationalism, according to FT analyst Edward Luce, author of… Read more »

Four scenarios for ending Venezuela’s crisis

     

It’s been four months since Venezuela’s National Assembly declared its president, Juan Guaidó, interim president. He would constitutionally succeed President Nicolás Maduro (2013-present), whose 2018 re-re-election has been widely seen as fraudulent,… Read more »

‘From Russia With Hate’: Kremlin destabilization strategy employs EU populists, CEE extremists

     

Right-wing populists are on the rise in Europe. But they are just part of a wider trend away from monolithic parties. And the populists are themselves subject to that process,… Read more »

Democracies under pressure: how and why citizens are disenchanted

     

The idea of democracy has revolutionized the world. It is based on a political order whose main feature is making the exercise of power subject to the consent of the… Read more »

China perfecting tools to erase identity and dissent

     

China is using “concentration camps,” electronic surveillance and persecution in an Orwellian war on religion, Nicholas Kristof writes for The New York Times. This is the vision of high-tech surveillance… Read more »