Category: Democratic Transitions

Algeria crackdown as election looms: Is a democratic transition possible?

     

Algeria‘s contentious presidential election campaign is highlighting the deep gulf between young people at the heart of a street protest movement and an ageing elite they see as clinging to… Read more »

Offsetting Sudan’s deep state: Unfolding transition offers promise – and substantial risk

     

Sudan’s unfolding transition offers both great promise and substantial risk, according to a new analysis. There is every reason to expect that entrenched interests that have benefited under the old… Read more »

Global protest wave rattles governments, but can it advance democracy?

     

Whether the unprecedented wave of protests leads to sustainable democratic transitions depends in large part on the strategic sophistication of illiberal regimes and democratic actors, including the latter’s ability to… Read more »

Fresh hope for Ukraine on Maidan, Holodomor anniversaries?

     

Do new faces in politics in Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and Slovakia mean real change, New Eastern Europe asks. ‘Is this part of a wider trend that indicates deeper social transformation’,… Read more »

Arab Spring 2.0?

     

Recent disturbances in Arab countries have not yet become as far-reaching as what ensued after a Tunisian fruit vendor immolated himself in protest nine years ago, but observers are already… Read more »

Post-1989 structures need ‘remodeling, even democracy,’ says Walesa

     

Did Central Europe’s democratic forces defeat one form of authoritarianism, but fail to anticipate other threats to freedom? The post-Cold War disruption in job markets, economic inequities, and disputes over… Read more »

Velvet Revolution dissidents warn of new threats to Czech freedom

     

Protests broke out in Prague Saturday on the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution after courts confirmed that Prime Minister Andrej Babis collaborated with the StB, the Communist era secret… Read more »

Democracy doomsayers question causes of backsliding

     

Are the causes of democratic erosion the same in the advanced liberal democracies as seen in Venezuela, Hungary, Turkey, Spain before the Spanish Civil War, and Germany and Italy before… Read more »