The leading figures on the world stage today practice a brutal, smash-mouth politics, a personalized authoritarianism, notes Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose. Old-school strongmen, they do whatever is needed to… Read more »
In his essay “Democracy Demotion” (July/August 2019), Larry Diamond claims that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban “has presided over the first death of a democracy in an EU member state,”… Read more »
A change in control at Budapest’s 1956 Institute, prompted by Hungary’s illiberal premier Viktor Orban, is part of a wider trend of stifling academic freedom and limiting public dissent, creating… Read more »
Three decades after sub-Saharan Africa joined the “third wave,” democracy’s ability to endure has been established in many countries, but its quality remains a grave concern, notes Peter M. Lewis,… Read more »
The newly-elected prime minister of the center-right New Democracy party, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, promises a return to normality for the middle class after 4.5 years with the populist Syriza party… Read more »
To say that Hungary is no longer a democracy is a stark claim and I have thought, read and looked hard before making it, notes Oxford University’s Timothy Garton Ash…. Read more »
Western populism is impossible to understand as a direct result of domestic problems. Rather, it is a reaction to the global redistribution of power that is still taking shape, argues… Read more »
Illiberal regimes have had a good run, but perhaps the tide is shifting. “Protesters poured into [Hong Kong’s] streets for a second Sunday despite the suspension of a controversial bill to expand… Read more »
A union built to protect democracy faces authoritarian creep. Its leaders are divided over the best response, The Financial Times reports. The anti-democratic tilt in some EU states is an… Read more »
Powerful global forces are eroding the foundations of the liberal order and empowering illiberal figures like Britain’s pinstriped populist Nigel Farage, The Economist observes: The most powerful of these global… Read more »