Category: Democratic institutions

Can Venezuela be saved?

     

As Venezuela unwinds, Leopoldo López, the opposition’s most prominent leader, sits under house arrest and contemplates what might still be possible, Wil S. Hylton writes for The New York Times… Read more »

Rise of Islamism in Malaysia and Indonesia jeopardizing democratic gains?

     

The rise of Islamism in Malaysia and Indonesia could have severe consequences for the two states’ societies, political systems, and overall stability, says a leading analyst. Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib… Read more »

Xi sets China on ‘collision course with history’ or new model for authoritarianism?

     

  China’s relentless rise and its more recent embrace of repressive tactics that recall the Mao era — a process accelerated by President Xi Jinping’s bid to stay in power indefinitely — have… Read more »

The next Arab Spring ‘simply a matter of time’?

     

Autocratic allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, have reportedly been told that the U.S. will not “lecture” them on democracy and human rights. U.S. attempts to explicitly… Read more »

Enlightenment Now: Is democracy winning or losing the global contest?

     

  Liberal democracy “is where the world was, not where it is going,” said US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. By the end of the year, we should be able to… Read more »

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 »

Recession and renewal in Europe’s democracies?

     

Despite illiberal trends in Europe, surveys suggest citizens are becoming more engaged. The overall picture is one of both crisis and renewal, according to Carnegie analysts Richard Youngs and Sarah… Read more »

Evolving Terror: how to roll back innovative jihadists’ ‘toxic ideologies’

     

It was a quarter of a century ago this week, on February 26, 1993, when a group of jihadist terrorists, some of whom had trained in Afghanistan, tried to bring down the… Read more »

Democracy and its discontents: charting a path of renewal

     

Surveying America’s political history, Larry Diamond of Stanford University divines “a general pattern of resilience, punctuated by dark periods of authoritarian temptation,” The Economist notes: Indeed the two are related;… Read more »

Blending realism and idealism to defend democracy

     

  The post-war consolidation of Western Europe’s fragile democracies was secured through an unprecedented initiative that matched interests to ideas and established the institutions that underpinned the post-war liberal order…. Read more »