Category: National Endowment for Democracy

Arab Spring: Unfinished business or tragic legacy?

     

The uprisings of the Arab Spring seemed to represent a dramatic turning point in history, the sudden collapse of regimes and political systems few expected to be so fragile. But… Read more »

10 years on: Egypt ‘a guidebook on what not to do’ for democratic transition

     

  Ten years on, why did Egypt’s attempted democratic transition fail? What are the lasting effects of January 25 on politics and society? How does al-Sisi’s regime differ from Mubarak’s?… Read more »

10 years on, taking stock of Tunisian democracy,

     

Reversing the dangerous erosion of U.S. democracy is urgent, but the argument that this requires abandoning efforts to uphold democratic values elsewhere has it backwards, say two leading observers. Commitments… Read more »

Ten years after the Arab Spring: Why democracy failed

     

A majority in nine countries across the Arab world feel they are living in significantly more unequal societies today than before the Arab spring, an era of uprisings, civil wars… Read more »

Arab Spring revisited: Did the West ‘miss a date with history’?

     

Ten years ago, as protests flared across the Arab world, Western governments failed to meet a date with destiny and help nurture dreams of democracy, missing an unprecedented chance to… Read more »

‘We failed to protect our best ones’: Activists killed in Kabul University attack

     

Human rights and democracy advocates are expressing sympathy and solidarity with Afghan civil society after at least three activists were killed in an Islamic State attack on Kabul University. Afghanistan… Read more »

Populism and elitism’s ‘corrosive effect on democratic life’

     

In 1911, Robert Michels (1876-1936), an Italian political sociologist, published “Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy,” postulating the “iron law of oligarchy.” Michels, who… Read more »