Category: Civil Society

Time to start shredding Putin Playbook

     

Social media platforms are failing to make the changes that would help curb online disinformation and fake news despite the efforts made since the 2016 US presidential election exposed the… Read more »

Liberal democracy vs. illiberalism

     

Many scholars and pundits have recently declared that democracy is in crisis. According to analyses that draw on data from the Varieties of Democracy Project, the average level of democracy across the world has not necessary declined,… Read more »

China’s digital totalitarian state enjoying a ‘golden field for propaganda’

     

  A “shocking new report” from Canada’s intelligence service cites China’s domestically-focused propaganda as an example of the “total” information warfare posing an existential threat to Western democratic pluralism. Ever… Read more »

Venezuela: one of 21st century’s ‘most impressive defenses of democracy’ – and yet …..

     

President Nicolas Maduro said that Venezuela raised $735 million in early sales of its new “petro” cryptocurrency, launched amid deepening financial and political crises in the country, the Council on… Read more »

A ‘good populism’: will 2018 be as revolutionary as 1968?

     

A new generation of rebels is rising in Europe, this time from the right, with echoes of the huge protest movements of 50 years ago, argues Ivan Krastev, the chairman… Read more »

Does democracy catalyze destructive dynamics of political tribalism?

     

American politics today has as much in common with the developing world as it does with Europe, according to Yale University’s Amy Chua. Time and again, vote-seeking demagogues with few… Read more »

‘Social Media as Information Warfare’: countering adversary threats to democratic institutions

     

One hour after news broke about the school shooting in Florida last week, Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up the gun control debate, The… Read more »

‘Oligarch-infested kleptocracy’? Ukraine’s corruption undermining democratic prospects

     

  By pumping so much money through the hands of Ukrainian officials and businessmen — often the same people — the surge in military spending has held back efforts to… Read more »

Reform or repression? Ethiopia ‘faces watershed moment’ after PM resigns

     

  Ethiopia’s ruling coalition has lost its authority and all parties must help map the country’s future, an opposition leader said on Friday, suggesting political tensions in Africa’s second most… Read more »