Category: Authoritarianism

Smart sanctions should target Kremlin kleptocrats

     

More than 1,000 people were detained at anti-corruption protests across Russia on Monday, AP reports: The OVD-Info group, which tracks police detentions and posts the names of the detainees on… Read more »

Hunt for informers in Russia’s ‘Domestic Security Wars’

     

A long list of foreign nonprofit groups has been declared “undesirable” and a threat to Russia’s national security, including a London-based outpost of Ms. Natalia Gryaznevich’s organization, Open Russia, The… Read more »

How Western ‘enablers’ import corruption and strengthen authoritarianism

     

Certain elements within the legal, financial, and influence communities, seeking new markets, clients, and profits among an emerging global class of super wealthy actors with fortunes of dubious provenance, have… Read more »

Anchoring democratic values? Taking stock of shifting world order

     

During World War II and beyond, the United States was always the anchor of democratic values and an international world order that secured peace and prosperity. What happens when the… Read more »

‘Kleptocracy Curse’ undermines democracy, threatens global security

     

Federal investigators in Brazil have uncovered corruption at the highest levels of the government and in the country’s largest corporations, according to a Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder by Claire Felter and Rocio Cara… Read more »

Are we on the brink of a post-democratic era?

     

Former President Obama will “echo his call to reject the rising strain of authoritarian politics and policies” when he accepts an award for ethics in government next week, The Hill… Read more »

Vietnam: time to realize John McCain’s unsecured legacy

     

Senator John McCain’s legacy is secure in terms of US-Vietnam reconciliation, but it falls to us to realize his commitment to realizing democracy in Vietnam, writes Dr. Cu Huy Ha Vu (right),… Read more »

‘Thinking Democratically’ vs. Identity Politics

     

Liberal democracy can deliver peace and prosperity, but what happens if peace and prosperity aren’t enough? Evan Goldstein asks in The Chronicle of Higher Education: It’s a question Francis Fukuyama… Read more »

Populism is (or is not) the legacy of the global financial crisis? Discuss

     

The process set in train by the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers has produced two big losers — liberal democracy and open international borders. The culprits, who include bankers,… Read more »