Populist leaders across Central and Eastern Europe are mounting simultaneous crackdowns on nongovernmental organizations that promote open government, aid refugees and often serve as checks on authoritarian governments, The New… Read more »
Thousands of Poles used yesterday’s anniversary of the imposition of martial law by the communist regime 35 years ago to protest against the current conservative government, the BBC reports: The… Read more »
U.S. President Barack Obama warned today against a rise in nationalism and populism – from both Left and Right – noting that a backlash against globalization had stoked illiberal movements…. Read more »
The world ideological climate is now more contested. After being in retreat for decades, authoritarian regimes are increasingly pushing back against liberalizing currents, as the 2008 global financial crisis and… Read more »
Even before the December 2011 protests — and his own reelection as president in March 2012 — Vladimir Putin had begun signaling the return of a more authoritarian and aggressive… Read more »
Contemporary commentary on central and eastern Europe tends to come down with a heavy hand, say analysts Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski and In his recent snapshot, “Poland’s Constitutional Crisis,” Daniel Kelemen… Read more »
The conventional wisdom that populists want to bring politics closer to the people or even clamor for direct democracy could not be more mistaken, notes Jan Werner Müller, a professor… Read more »
After simmering for nine months, the tension between Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal, is coming to a boil, says R…. Read more »
Europe’s illiberal democracies have gained a new member, and the world has taken notice, analyst Henry Foy observes. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the Law and Justice party had been… Read more »
The emergence of a virulent new strain of authoritarian populism on both sides of the Atlantic has prompted many observers to draw (largely inappropriate and far-fetched) analogies with the… Read more »