Category: Authoritarianism

‘World’s Newest One-Party State’: Beijing backs Cambodia’s crackdown

     

Sweden said on Tuesday it was stopping new aid for Cambodia after the main opposition party was outlawed by the Supreme Court at the government’s request….. But Western donors have… Read more »

Beware Russian elephant: Kremlin using fake news to confuse the West

     

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet, says the company is working to ferret out Russian propaganda from Google News after facing criticism that Kremlin-owned media sites had been given plum… Read more »

Conflict of ideas and models in varied, global threats to democracy

     

Whatever Russia did last year amounted to an attack on American democracy, notes the Wall Street Journal’s Gerald F. Seib. Worse, that is only one of several ways the democratic… Read more »

‘Quad’ of democracies vs. China: a new clash of civilizations?

     

The resumption of talks on the “quadrilateral” strategic initiative between the US, Australia, Japan and India is a shot across the bows of China. It has more than a whiff of… Read more »

Cross-border, state-directed kleptocracy – 21st century authoritarianism

     

  Lebanon-based businessmen who lost enterprises through dealings with members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family and others in the kingdom are closely watching a the anti-corruption campaign led by the… Read more »

Autocrats’ ‘sharp power’ prompts Western self-censorship

     

Outspoken Labor MP Michael Danby has warned of China’s rise in “hard power”, praising the “push-back by Australia’s democratic system” against soft power initiatives, the Australian reports: Speaking to a… Read more »

Beyond Sunni and Shia: challenging sectarianism in a changing Middle East

     

One could be forgiven for thinking Iraq remains a tangled mess of sectarian division and political failings, whose people are incapable of resolving their differences and working together to rebuild… Read more »

The End of the End of History? What Is To Be Done?

     

  Is it time to declare the end of the end of history? Are we witnessing the exhaustion, or tragic collapse, of the once-vital liberal tradition that supported our politics,… Read more »

Rights defenders at risk: 20 years after UN Declaration

     

In a Russian court hearing yesterday, human rights defender Semyon Simonov (left) faced police officers who had detained him in April in the southern city of Volgograd. Simonov had been… Read more »