Venezuela: Edge of the Precipice
The Organization of American States will meet Thursday to discuss the deepening crisis in Venezuela, where the opposition is pushing forward with efforts to activate a recall referendum of President… Read more »
Category: Authoritarianism
Russia’s election countdown: opposition pressured by Kremlin
Russia’s liberal opposition has been subjected to all kinds of pressure in the last few months, from leaked clandestine sex tapes to dubious court cases and physical violence. As parliamentary… Read more »
Putin ‘orchestrating’ Russian football hooligans for hybrid warfare
Is Vladimir Putin orchestrating Russian football hooligans as an instrument of hybrid warfare? Putin, not himself averse to machismo, has often empathized with Moscow ultras’ behavior, deliberately cultivating virility as a feature of an assertive… Read more »
Venezuela’s civil society ‘rapidly deteriorating’ – OAS must act
Civil society is rapidly deteriorating in Venezuela. Once a prosperous oil producer, the nation is slipping into a state of chaos that is beginning to resemble Somalia. And things just… Read more »
Vice News, Jigsaw partner to empower free expression
The global struggle for free expression is the focus of a new partnership between Vice News and Jigsaw (formerly Google Ideas, the firm’s think tank and technology incubator). A new… Read more »
Muslim Brotherhood’s dilemma: Religion or politics?
The audacious decision of Tunisia’s Ennahda movement to separate politics and religion has raised the question of whether Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood would follow Ennahda’s course, notes Khalil al-Anani, an associate professor at… Read more »
Homo Sovieticus mentality impeding democratic change in Post-Soviet space
The prospects of democracy in Belarus and Russia may be bleak, but pessimism is no excuse for inaction or apathy, according to Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich. Vladimir Putin is able… Read more »
The Middle East Unbalanced
In 2011, the political trajectories of many Arab states appeared to converge as protesters across the region revolted against corruption and authoritarianism, demanding dignity and acknowledgement of their basic… Read more »
Why new democracies vote authoritarians back into office
Why did so many Peruvians vote for Keiko Fujimori, the candidate of a party rooted in the former authoritarian regime of her father, Alberto Fujimori? She lost the June presidential election… Read more »
Russia: Same Game, New Tactics
For some observers, Vladimir Putin’s re-election in 2018 is a foregone conclusion; they see him as a virtual “president-for-life,” secure enough to ignore pressures that might force another leader to… Read more »