Category: Democracy and foreign policy

Chilcot report proves Iraq war was not about advancing democracy

     

  The invasion of Iraq has had a huge impact on the debate about democracy in the Middle East—and almost entirely a detrimental one, notes Jane Kinninmont, senior research fellow… Read more »

Real danger to the world isn’t Brexit – it’s the rise of illiberalism

     

Two weeks after Britain’s EU referendum, Europe has defied predictions that the UK’s vote to leave would inspire a surge in copycat breakaway movements, with establishment parties enjoying gains and populists… Read more »

New Forms of Democratic Citizenship in MENA

     

The Arab Spring opened a window of opportunity to revise democracy support in a direction that better reflects local interpretations of citizenship and rights, but external actors have yet to… Read more »

Brexit advances Russia’s strategic aims

     

Vladimir Putin appeared to throw down the gauntlet to British politicians to quit the European Union yesterday, questioning whether they would dare to deliver on the democratic mandate for Brexit… Read more »

Why China is the big winner from Brexit

     

  Publicly, China has lamented Britain’s decision to walk out on the EU. But there was a definite silver lining for Xi Jinping’s increasingly authoritarian China, “[and] it won’t have taken… Read more »

Brexit is a ‘warning to the liberal international order’

     

The British people’s decision to leave the European Union is the country’s single biggest democratic act in modern times, notes commentator Andrew Marr – and one of the elite’s most… Read more »

Erdogan’s ‘divisive authoritarianism’ a factor in Istanbul attack?

     

The attack on Istanbul’s main airport has underlined President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increased weakness, a vulnerability that’s a product of the actions of Turkey’s allies and opponents alike. But it’s partly Erdogan’s… Read more »

Brexit the ‘most damaging blow ever inflicted on liberal democratic international order’

     

Make no mistake about it. Britain’s vote to leave the EU is the most damaging blow ever inflicted on the liberal democratic international order created under US auspices after 1945…. Read more »

Reconfigure USAID for State-Building?

     

Washington’s top development agency needs to focus on building governments, not democracies, in chaotic foreign countries, according to Max Boot and Michael Miklaucic, respectively the Council on Foreign Relations’ Senior… Read more »