Dictators’ dark secret: authoritarian learning
How did so many autocracies come to adopt the same anti-democratic strategies and repressive methods in the same decade? The Washington Post asks: The answers are difficult to find —… Read more »
Category: Dictatorships
‘Great Power Image and Enemy-Making’: Ideology’s role in Russia’s war
Explanations linking Russia’s behavior to traditional geopolitics or fears of democratization fall flat as accounts of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, says a leading analyst. The war in Ukraine is… Read more »
Is the Belarusian dictatorship doomed?
When he ran for president of Belarus in 2020, Viktor Babariko, a middle-of-the-road successful banker who pledged to bring democracy, separation of powers and term limits after nearly three decades of Alexander Lukashenko’s… Read more »
Why Putin’s repression is worse than under the Soviets
With Moscow’s barbaric aggression against Ukraine, Russia has experienced a quick return to almost Stalinist-era levels of repression, says former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky. New laws have made it impossible… Read more »
Did Venezuela’s Maduro ‘outfox’ the West? News media go digital to survive
As legacy news outlets close due to government pressure, Venezuela’s independent news sites keep reporting despite legislation and internet blockages, analyst Gretel Kahn writes for Oxford University’s Reuters Institute: News… Read more »
Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail
The classic ‘Western’ trajectory of modernization characterized by democracy and individual liberty is no longer seen as a reliable route to prosperity by many states. In a new book, “Defeating… Read more »
Why do some dictatorships fall while others do not?
The new U.S. Appropriations Bill pushes back against the rise of authoritarianism by investing $2.9 billion for democracy programs globally, including $315 million for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)…. Read more »
Glimpses of democracy show time and history are not on dictators’ side
The West’s democracies must help Ukraine to resist Russia and to liberate all temporary occupied territories, including Crimea, a leading activist said today. “The logic of authoritarian leaders is very… Read more »
How to become a 21st-Century ‘spin dictator’
Are the authoritarians who grace, or disgrace, our world, from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Vladimir Putin, more like or unlike their twentieth-century predecessors? Two new books, each with virtues of… Read more »
A new transition paradigm? From democratic decline to authoritarian aggression
Western democracies are demonstrating fresh resolve in defending Ukraine, but still need to demonstrate sufficient resilience by addressing domestic backsliding, according to a new Freedom House report. While some democratic… Read more »