Supporting a United Ukraine
President Petro Poroshoenko and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the two candidates in Ukraine’s runoff presidential election, face off in an official debate in Kiev on Friday (RFE/RL:CFR). The vote will be… Read more »
Category: Civil Society
How democracies can prevent, withstand, and counter assaults
The upcoming European Parliament contests are one of the largest, most complex democratic undertakings on record, as twenty-eight EU members will choose leaders for the next half-decade, notes Erik Brattberg,… Read more »
Authoritarian challenge is the ‘defining question of our time’?
Democracy’s global travails continue to mount, notes a leading observer. What looked as recently as a decade ago to be real democratic progress in countries as diverse as Brazil, Hungary, South Africa, and Turkey has… Read more »
‘Dangerous backsliding’: radicals use Indonesia’s democracy to undermine it
Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo and former military general Prabowo Subianto will face off in a presidential election on Wednesday (Nikkei/CFR), with official results expected take up to a month to… Read more »
Illiberal democracy’s ‘existential threat’ to values and institutions
There is no democracy without liberty, and “illiberal democracy” poses an existential threat to European values and institutions, according to a new analysis. Popular discontent is fueled by a pervasive… Read more »
Explaining advanced democracies’ ‘exceptional resilience’
The emergence of authoritarian capitalism and illiberal populism is raising fresh questions about the relationship between democracy, predicated on political equality, and the market, a driver of socio-economic inequality. But… Read more »
‘Hacked World Order’: digital authoritarianism’s ‘profound threat’
In the hands of competent and exploitative forces such as the People’s Republic of China or Facebook, the long march toward enslavement by technology continues apace. …As Richard Fontaine and… Read more »
Ethiopia’s transition: ‘change at the top is not enough’
It has been a whirlwind year for Ethiopia since Abiy Ahmed became prime minister, say analysts Ahmed Soliman and Abel Abate Demissie. He has initiated a raft of reforms to… Read more »
Mini-Arab Spring? ‘Khashoggi was right: Arabs still want democracy’
Before his death, the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was trying to set up several organizations to promote the cause of democracy in the region — particularly one that aimed, among… Read more »
Humanitarian aid agreement ‘could facilitate Venezuela’s transition’
The United States has called on the United Nations to revoke the U.N. credentials of the government of embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and to instead recognize Juan Guaidó… Read more »