Category: Authoritarianism

Three ways to advance democracy abroad

     

While the new U.S. Congress will face deep divides on many issues, it does have a chance to act on one issue upon which both sides broadly agree: supporting democracy… Read more »

China’s autocracy with democratic characteristics: the regime ‘that failed to fail’?

     

The pattern is familiar to historians, a rising power challenging an established one, with a familiar complication: For decades, the United States encouraged and aided China’s rise, working with its… Read more »

Autocratic populists leave democracy ‘unfixable’?

     

Advanced democracies enjoy institutional defenses against would-be authoritarian leaders, analysts suggest, and even where they fall victim to illiberal or populist rule, they tend to demonstrate resilience and capacity for… Read more »

Aiding autocrats: China’s ‘sharp power’ at work

     

Chinese telecommunications company ZTE has been helping Venezuela’s autocratic government construct an advanced citizen surveillance program, Slate’s Mia Armstrong reports. A Reuters investigation published Wednesday provides a detailed look into the development… Read more »

Why disinformation impacts democracies and autocracies differently

     

Democracies are vulnerable to disinformation campaigns that “flood” public debate and disrupt shared understandings of actors and coalitions, in ways that autocracies are not, research suggests. That’s because there are… Read more »

Sri Lanka turmoil points to China’s ‘new colonialism’

     

The surest way to lose an election in south Asia is to be too enthusiastic about China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Wherever Chinese influence has grown, governments have turned more… Read more »

Populists have weakened, not destroyed democratic institutions

     

National populists operate within the shell of democratic institutions, and have weakened but not destroyed them, the FT’s John Lloyd writes in a review of Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the… Read more »

Corruption hits support for democracy in Eastern Europe: feeds ‘Generation of Distrust’

     

Eastern Europeans’ faith in democracy has declined and German researchers think they know the reason why — corruption, POLITICO.EU’s Philip Kaleta reports: A study by the German Economic Institute, a Cologne-based think… Read more »