Category: Authoritarianism

Anti-corruption watchdog highlights push for reform in Azerbaijan

     

Baku has four months to rewrite its laws on NGOs or be suspended from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative — a step that could jeopardise billions of dollars of loans… Read more »

Kremlin’s modus operandi – ideology or kleptocracy?

     

As the Kremlin gears up for Vladimir Putin’s last re-election bid in 18 months, anti-graft crusader Alexei Navalny (left) has emerged as the conduit of choice for rival factions to… Read more »

Iran pursuing China Model?

     

At 77, and with at least one hospitalization in recent years for prostate cancer, Ayatollah Khamenei appears determined, while he still has full power, to make the changes essential for… Read more »

Unraveling of Post-1989 Order – The Specter Haunting Europe

     

The unraveling of the post–Cold War liberal order is manifested by the West’s declining influence in international politics; the waning attraction of liberal democracy; and the maturing tensions within liberal… Read more »

Once a symbol of hope, Hungary now a study in democratic frailty

     

Protesters with referee whistles disturbed the Hungarian government’s commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the anti-Soviet revolution of 1956 on Sunday, as supporters of Prime Minister Viktor Orban tried to… Read more »

What chance for democracy in the Middle East?

     

There are many lessons to take from the Iraq debacle, notes Gerard Russell, who served as an assistant to Iraq’s first elected prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, in 2005. The postwar… Read more »

Cold War 2.0? Confront authoritarianism by defending democratic values

     

Gen Sir Richard Shirreff remembers the moment he realized Nato was facing a new and more dangerous Russia. It was 19 March 2014, the day after Russia annexed Crimea from… Read more »

Venezuela’s odd transition to dictatorship

     

Venezuela’s Congress on Sunday declared that the government had staged a coup by blocking a drive to recall President Nicolas Maduro in a raucous legislative session that was interrupted when… Read more »