Category: Central/Eastern Europe

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 »

New voice of change helps Ukraine reinvent itself

     

Ukraine is at the center of Russia’s conflict with the West, playing a vital role in Vladimir Putin’s ambition to restore Russia’s great-power status, The Economist notes: The Kremlin has… Read more »

Russia’s disinformation can’t pretend to offer attractive ideology

     

Russian interference in America’s presidential election merits measured retaliation. But the West can withstand such “active measures”, The Economist notes: Russia does not pretend to offer the world an attractive… Read more »

Next steps in democratic renewal

     

Democracy is moving away from mass representation and the bureaucracy of the welfare state towards something more networked, open and personalized, argues Anthony Zacharzewski, the director of the Democratic Society,… Read more »

Havel’s legacy is timeless, Dalai Lama tells Forum 2000

     

About 1000 people, some of them carrying Tibetan flags or posters reading Free Tibet, came to Prague’s Hradcany Square to welcome the Dalai Lama, who arrived to attend the 20th… Read more »

Russia is guiding Europe’s illiberal turn

     

Russia is financing far-right political parties and critics of the European Union as part of a broader Kremlin strategy to sow disinformation and mistrust on the Continent, according to a… Read more »

Eight threats to Europe’s democracies

     

Europe’s democracies face deeper problems than Brexit or the sometimes creaky, sometimes overbearing machinery of European governance, argues George Weigel, the Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy… Read more »

Autocrats more trusted than democrats?

     

Authoritarian leaders are seen as far more trustworthy than politicians in more openly democratic countries across the emerging world, according to data compiled by the World Economic Forum, The Financial… Read more »