Category: Democratic institutions

USAID must save Afrobarometer, say former Africa Bureau officials

     

One of Africa’s most important democracy advocacy organizations is in trouble because of a sharp decrease in donor funding, according to several former Assistant Secretaries in the State Department’s Bureau… Read more »

Is the U.S. giving up on supporting democracy abroad?

     

Serious pessimism about democracy’s global fortunes as well as skepticism about the value and wisdom of democracy promotion have gripped Washington, argues Thomas Carothers, vice president for studies at the… Read more »

Final days of chavismo? Venezuela protests test Maduro’s grip

     

Venezuela’s opposition mounted fresh nationwide protests Wednesday to push for a vote on driving President Nicolas Maduro from power in the crisis-stricken country, AFP reports: A week after a mass… Read more »

Confronting the challenge of ‘state fragility’

     

  For more than two decades, addressing fragility has been an evolving bipartisan priority for U.S. policymakers. Yet growing understanding and consensus about the problem has failed to generate the… Read more »

US investigating Russian plan to subvert November elections

     

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are investigating what they see as a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election… Read more »

China warns ‘localists’ against reshaping Hong Kong’s political landscape

     

China has warned that anyone advocating Hong Kong’s independence could be punished, the BBC reports: The stern message came after young pro-democracy activists won seats on Hong Kong’s Legislative Council… Read more »

Proscribing pollster, Kremlin ‘takes control of the narrative’

     

Russia’s only major independent pollster, the Levada Centre, has been designated as a “foreign agent”, the Russian Justice Ministry said on Monday, two weeks ahead of nationwide parliamentary elections. Foreign… Read more »

EU reform could give democracy promotion a lift

     

It’s time for a pan-European union that encompasses all of the continent’s sovereign countries at different levels of integration, writes Carnegie Europe analyst Cornelius Adebahr: The most basic integration level… Read more »

Populism – a danger to democracy

     

The conventional wisdom that populists want to bring politics closer to the people or even clamor for direct democracy could not be more mistaken, notes Jan Werner Müller, a professor… Read more »