Category: Authoritarianism

How to detoxify the Internet

     

Jigsaw, the Alphabet unit that aims to make the world safer through technology, is expanding its Project Shield technology that protects against distributed denial of services attacks to European political organizations, campaigns, and candidates,… Read more »

Egypt faces ‘worst crackdown on freedoms in modern history’

     

  Eight years ago this week, protests erupted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, with throngs of Egyptians demanding an end to autocratic rule and chanting the slogan, “Bread, freedom, social justice,”  Jared… Read more »

Kremlin deploys NGOs as ‘tool for Russia’s projection of influence’

     

The Kremlin uses NGOs to achieve its goals both inside and outside Russia, according to a new report. Domestically, pro-Kremlin NGOs help shore up support for the government and suggest… Read more »

Ukraine mourns death of Nadia Diuk

     

Nadia Diuk (above, center) was by all accounts an extraordinary woman who leaves fond memories for her loved ones as well as a legacy of admirable work throughout which she displayed… Read more »

West must identify, exploit asymmetric advantages over autocrats

     

With the re-emergence of great power competition,  Russia and China are pursuing asymmetric strategies against the West, using the advantages of authoritarianism—secrecy, deception, a lack of legal or moral constraints—to… Read more »

‘Revolution in Ruins’: Venezuela ‘on brink of lasting change’

     

In less than a month, Juan Guaido has gone from a virtual unknown in Venezuelan politics to the country’s most-watched figure, assuming the presidency of the opposition-controlled congress and briefly… Read more »

Putin’s Russia is at ‘a dead end’

     

When the Ukrainian Orthodox Church broke from Russia’s, it dealt a blow to President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to portray his country as one people with a single identity, argues Michael… Read more »

New intelligence strategy highlights threats to liberal democratic order

     

The United States will be challenged in coming years by nations that exploit “the weakening of the post-WWII international order and dominance of Western democratic ideals” and “increasingly isolationist tendencies… Read more »

Understanding Central Europe’s illiberal metamorphosis

     

To understand Central Europe ’s illiberal metamorphosis, bear in mind that the region’s political imperative for almost three decades was “Imitate the West!” That process went by different names –… Read more »

Are social media platforms ‘rotting democracy from within’?

     

  Facebook has entered a new era of cautious glasnost, inviting researchers to look ‘under the hood’ of various aspects of its operations, and understand how it formulates and implements… Read more »