Central Asia is becoming more authoritarian before our very eyes: after the power grab completed during the pandemic, the region’s elites are now introducing a series of measures designed to… Read more »
Kyrgyzstan’s civil society has been under increasing pressure throughout the last decade, requiring a root and branch rethink of donor initiatives to take stock of the situation and devise new… Read more »
In its latest report, Nations in Transit 2020: Dropping the Democratic Facade, Freedom House warns of a “stunning democratic breakdown” across Central Europe, the Balkans, and Eurasia as many leaders… Read more »
Central Asia is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Its governments face legitimacy crises at a time when long-standing leaders are being replaced by little-known, untested ones. Social contracts, by which citizens… Read more »
Authoritarian states are using all-too familiar constitutional mechanisms to consolidate power, according to activist-journalists Tamara Grigoryeva and Ismail Djalilov. Across Eurasia, snap elections happen rather frequently, they write for Open… Read more »
The resurgence of populism has disrupted the post-Cold War political order and raised the prospect of instability in Europe and Eurasia, according to Nations in Transit 2017, the 22nd edition… Read more »
Kazakhstan’s leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is the country’s only president since independence — elected five times with 97.5 percent of the vote. Nazarbayev has created a kind of “authoritarian lite” system… Read more »
The recent death of Uzbekistan’s seemingly perpetual president has drawn fresh attention to the uncertainties of one-man rule elsewhere in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region, writes Freedom House… Read more »
In the wake of the widespread authoritarian crackdown, we are witnessing a confluence of factors affecting the sustainability of different aspects of civil society (its organizations, actors and actions) in… Read more »
While economic downturns are threatening the stability of the former Soviet Union’s “entrenched dictatorships,” the migration crisis is fueling populism in Eastern Europe, and reforms in the Balkans are in… Read more »