Category: Economic Reform

Angola: a road to dialogue or things fall apart?

     

Angola faces a choice between three likely scenarios, says Rafael Marques de Morais, a leading journalist and democracy advocate: a dysfunctional status quo, with the kleptocratic, nepotistic regime maintained by… Read more »

Ten reasons Putinism is not sustainable

     

Columbia University analyst Mariya Snegovaya points to ten reasons why Putinism may not be nearly as “sustainable” as many think, Paul Goble writes for The Interpreter: Protest attitudes are growing… Read more »

South Africa heading for crisis, collapse and ‘regime change’?

     

Amid heckling from the opposition, the South African president used his State of the Nation speech to try and redeem himself following a spending scandal. But calls for him to… Read more »

Venezuela – too late to avoid catastrophe

     

  As markets brace themselves for the negative effects of the decline in oil prices, Venezuela will probably be the first big domino to fall, notes Ricardo Hausmann, the director… Read more »

Bleak prospects for Putinism – and Russian democracy

     

Russian President Vladimir Putin used to seem invincible. Today, he and his regime look enervated, confused, and desperate. Increasingly, both Russian and Western commentators suggest that Russia may be on… Read more »

Dawning of a new era? Geopolitical and vox populi risks converge

     

Once largely confined to less-transparent emerging market economies, the post-global financial crisis saw the return of political risks to the advanced democracies as well, while challengers to Western liberalism continue… Read more »

No democratic experiment for Vietnam’s Market-Leninists

     

Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party opened an eight-day congress Thursday to name the country’s new set of leaders, who will determine the pace of critical economic reforms, the fight against corruption… Read more »

Belarus at a crossroads

     

Despite the slow pace of market reforms, the Belarusian economy recorded quite impressive growth until recently, notes Marek Dabrowski, a Non-Resident Scholar at Bruegel, the Brussels-based think-tank. However the Belarus… Read more »

China’s leaders reveal their fears

     

Once admired by authoritarian governments elsewhere, not to mention some commentators in the West, for its canny balancing of free markets and party control, China’s style of leadership may be… Read more »

Tunisia ‘headed in wrong direction’, poll finds

     

  At least 10 senior leaders quit Tunisia’s ruling party on Wednesday as a wave of resignations in a dispute over the role of the president’s son continued to sap… Read more »