Category: coronavirus

Great Power Competition: Will pandemic give democracies advantage?

     

Democracy was in retreat, and autocrats were on the march, before the coronavirus appeared, notes analyst Ruchir Sharma. To contain it, leaders of all political styles have assumed previously unthinkable… Read more »

Geopolitics after Covid-19: A pandemic turning point?

     

COVID-19 is deepening the “democratic recession,” Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute, told a Hoover virtual policy briefing, the Stanford Daily’s Anna Milstein… Read more »

Explaining democratic resilience in an age of crisis

     

Older democracies are better equipped to cope with crises like the current Covid-19 pandemic, while the risk of institutional breakdown is greater in new democracies with weak civil society and weak… Read more »

Destined for autocracy? Scenarios for post-Covid Russia

     

A new Russian landscape is emerging that demands patient observation, even if is still unclear what comes next amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, notes Lilia Shevtsova (above, left), the Richard von… Read more »

‘Dropping the Democratic Facade’:  Nations in Transit 2020

     

In its latest report, Nations in Transit 2020: Dropping the Democratic Facade, Freedom House warns of a “stunning democratic breakdown” across Central Europe, the Balkans, and Eurasia as many leaders… Read more »

Post-Covid world ‘already here’? Illiberal plague tests democratic resilience

     

In human history, national emergencies, whether caused by war, invasion, financial crisis, or an epidemic, have often been the occasions for major political reform. It takes a huge external shock… Read more »

As coronavirus threatens legitimacy, China targets victims and critics

     

The Chinese authorities are clamping down as grieving relatives, along with activists, press the ruling Communist Party for an accounting of what went wrong in Wuhan, where the coronavirus killed… Read more »

Authoritarian challenges compromising the knowledge economy

     

In light of growing concern about malicious disruption during the global crisis, the United Nations’ Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) is playing a leading role in further developing a common framework… Read more »

Incompetence, impatience & impotence: Russia shows same traits that befell USSR

     

  The way Russian pro-governmental media approached Hungary’s “coronavirus coup” stand-off with the EU in the time of COVID-19 is in line with the outlets’ long-term attitude towards Hungary, notes… Read more »

Why China’s propaganda efforts backfire

     

A journalist who had worked for some of China’s most powerful propaganda outlets has been jailed for 15 years after being accused of attacking the ruling Communist Party, AFP reports:… Read more »