Category: Authoritarianism

How authoritarians are ‘dismantling democracy from the inside’

     

Authoritarian learning facilitates the ‘dismantling of democracy from the inside’, The Washington Post’s Amanda Erickson writes. It used to be that autocrats came to power through coups or by enacting states… Read more »

Ukraine: trans-Atlantic alliance should counter Russian aggression

     

U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker says Russia needs to release the Ukrainian sailors taken captive in the Kerch Strait in late November by Christmas or “before the new… Read more »

NGOs call for EU ‘Global Magnitsky’ sanctions on human rights abusers, kleptocrats

     

European foreign ministers should endorse Dutch plans to create targeted EU sanctions for human rights abusers when they meet next week, say 90 human rights and civil society groups, including Fair Trials,… Read more »

EU launches ‘war against disinformation’: resisting Russia’s ‘populace-centric warfare’

     

Russia’s efforts to weaken America’s democratic institutions aren’t limited to elections — but also extend to the U.S. justice system, a group of cybersecurity, national security and legal experts told… Read more »

Austerity squeeze: middle class discontent stirs memories of Arab Spring

     

A wave of economic austerity is squeezing the Arab world’s middle class, pushing a segment of society that is key to growth and stability into making painful cutbacks and fueling… Read more »

Could democratic world feel the heat from Paris?

     

France is the latest European country to experience an upsurge of anti-elitist sentiment ripe for exploitation by populist or illiberal forces. The demonstrators known as gilets jaunes — “yellow vests,” named after… Read more »

China’s big-data authoritarianism a more dangerous adversary than Soviet Communism

     

Recent changes ushered into U.S. foreign policy could end up being highly consequential and may even resemble the Truman moment, when over a short period America dramatically changed its views of the… Read more »

Civic technology: defending democracy in the digital age

     

  Unless we take action, chatbots could seriously endanger our democracy, and not just when they go haywire, notes Jamie Susskind, a past fellow of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet… Read more »

Protecting democracy and human rights: still the indispensable nation?

     

Monday December 10 is International Human Rights Day. Is the United States still the indispensable nation when it comes to advancing democracy and protecting human rights defenders? After World War… Read more »

Iran on ‘upward trajectory’ strengthening ideological, coercive pillars of regime

     

The Islamic Republic of Iran is strengthening the security forces and religious institutions that constitute the two key pillars of the regime, says an Institute for International Strategic Studies analysis…. Read more »