Category: illiberalism

How to halt illiberal drift between Central and Western Europe

     

Viktor Orban and his nationalist Fidesz party have weakened democratic protections since coming to power in 2010 and now effectively control all branches of government, while silencing critical media, TIME… Read more »

A Warning From Europe: The Worst Is Yet to Come

     

Monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy, democracy—these were all familiar to Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago. But the illiberal one-party state, now found all over the world—think of China, Venezuela, Zimbabwe—was first developed by… Read more »

‘One of the great freedom fighters’: John McCain, R.I.P.

     

  Senator John McCain “was one of the great freedom fighters of all time,” according to a leading democracy advocate. “He was a champion of democracy wherever it was being… Read more »

Engaging illiberal Hungary: ‘excessively transactional, insufficiently rhetorical’?

     

Since Viktor Orbán was returned to the office of Prime Minister of Hungary in May 2010, he and his party Fidesz have transformed the political system of Hungary in a sustained… Read more »

Will liberal democracy survive ‘Illiberal International’ onslaught?

     

An Illiberal International is now advancing and one of the first to sound the alarm was Yascha Mounk, the author of The People vs Democracy (2018) and a lecturer on government at… Read more »

Orban’s Hungary offers a ‘glimpse of Europe’s demise’?

     

At a bucolic border post, Western-trained Hungarian counterintelligence agents recently got word that a known operative of Russia’s foreign spy service was driving into Hungary, and asked headquarters for permission… Read more »

Why Putin abandoned Russia’s Western orientation

     

Less than a decade ago, it seemed self-evident that Russia, despite all of its cultural and political differences, was reclaiming its rightful place as part of the Western world. In… Read more »

Orban’s chilling demand: ‘reconstruct European democracy’

     

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has issued a chilling message to EU leaders ahead of today’s crunch European Council summit, saying that European democracy must be ‘reconstructed’ in order to… Read more »

Europe’s Problem: Illiberal Majoritarianism or Creeping Authoritarianism?

     

Countless news reports and analytical commentaries suggest that Europe is experiencing a rise of illiberal democracy. According to them, populist parties are espousing a highly majoritarian form of democracy, while… Read more »

How illiberalism took hold of central Europe

     

Leading Polish intellectuals are speaking out against the country’s judicial reforms. Fearing Poland’s democracy is at stake, they have urged the European Court of Justice to intervene, Deutsche-Welle reports: Former… Read more »