Category: Democratic institutions

How to counter democracy’s vulnerability to populist demagogues

     

Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential victory in Brazil is part of a growing trend of authoritarian leaders being democratically elected across the world, notes Latin America expert Pablo Galarce. “[What] has happened… Read more »

Egypt’s ‘New Realism’: Sisi turns to autocrats for allies

     

Anecdotally, Egyptians appear far more concerned about security and economic issues than they are about their diminished civil liberties, argues Barak Barfi, a research fellow at the New America Foundation…. Read more »

Lodi Gyari Rinpoche, Dalai Lama’s former Special Envoy, passes away

     

Lodi Gyari Rinpoche, the former special envoy for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, passed away in the early hours of Monday morning in San Francisco at the age of 69…. Read more »

Blunting the hard edge of China’s ‘Sharp Power’

     

Faculty members at Cornell University said on Monday that they were cutting ties with a leading Chinese university after reports that it was harassing and intimidating students leading a campaign… Read more »

Latin America braced for ‘Bolsonaro effect.’ How did the unthinkable happen?

     

Following the crushing victory of right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Sunday’s runoff presidential election, Brazil’s Latin American neighbors are bracing for a regional “Bolsonaro effect,” AFP reports: The knock-on effect… Read more »

Kleptocratic solidarity: Russia aids Venezuela’s ‘mafia state’

     

Russia has sent a senior delegation to Venezuela to consult high-ranking government officials on a plan to stem the brutal economic collapse in a key Kremlin ally, Bloomberg reports: Venezuela… Read more »

In ‘an authoritarian era’, how to advance democracy?

     

There’s a rising angst in foreign policy circles over the status of democracy around the world, CNBC reports. “This is an authoritarian era, all things being equal. Democracy is in… Read more »

Putin’s Russia: emergence of democratic alternative an unlikely scenario?

     

Authoritarian rule is not imposed on Russians from above but is solicited from below by the people themselves, claims Sergey Karaganov, a former Putin advisor and one of Russia’s leading… Read more »

The big factor at the heart of Middle East protests

     

In the spring, major protests swept through Jordan over economic grievances and subsidy reforms. In July, protesters took to the streets in the south of Iraq, demanding that the government address persistent unemployment, underdevelopment and corruption, say… Read more »