Why Libya’s transition failed
The ultimate blame for Libya’s failed transition must lay with Muammar Gaddafi, who bequeathed Libyans a country without a state, notes a leading analyst. Leaders of the new Libya found it… Read more »
Category: Democracy Assistance and Promotion
Muted Modernists? Saudi Islamists ‘campaign for democracy’
The Saudi regime watched the 2011 Arab Spring unfold across the Middle East with deep unease. As the year progressed, the regime responded by rounding up moderate Islamists because of… Read more »
Hollowing out democracy: Hungary and beyond
Following the revolutions of 1989 that brought down communism in Central Europe, it appeared that the region was on the path to the consolidation of liberal democracy. This optimism, however,… Read more »
Russian repression hits close to home
Anyone who has paid attention to Russia in the last several years is well aware that the regime of Vladimir Putin has seriously cracked down on civil society and freedom… Read more »
Kremlin deploying new tactics against NGOs
Russia’s Justice Ministry has deployed another tactic to shut down NGOs it says aren’t in compliance with the foreign agent law, Charles Digges reports: suing them in court and demanding… Read more »
How autocrats use democracy to their advantage
Armenia’s abuse of democratic principles is indicative of larger trends in domestic democratization, and in international democracy promotion, argues Nelli Babayan, a Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy and Associate Fellow… Read more »
‘Great Surge’ marks end of the Third World
The assertion that democracy is better than autocracy at facilitating the move into prosperity butts up against the theory that authoritarianism is more conducive to rapid economic growth (as… Read more »
How Putin lost Ukraine
When the Russian inquest finally comes, the answer will be clear. It was President Vladimir Putin who lost Ukraine – after a millennium of shared east Slav identity, argues analyst Elizabeth… Read more »
Burkina Faso and the Sahel: Turning Points in Elections and Security
Sub-Saharan Africa was long seen as relatively immune to the call of Islamist militancy because of its unorthodox religious practices — rooted in Sufism, a more mystical mode of Islam… Read more »
Khomeini poll exclusion, consultant’s jailing send chilling message from Iran’s hardliners
After months of political maneuvering, the scion of the powerful Khomeini family and the projected figurehead of Iran’s ailing reform movement was definitively barred Wednesday from participating in parliamentary elections… Read more »