The European Union expects candidate countries to be democracies governed by the rule of law, notes the V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index: Despite some temporary reversals, all countries generally made… Read more »
Across the affluent, established democracies of North America and Western Europe, the last years have witnessed a meteoric rise of figures who harness a new level of anger that is… Read more »
Two weeks after Britain’s EU referendum, Europe has defied predictions that the UK’s vote to leave would inspire a surge in copycat breakaway movements, with establishment parties enjoying gains and populists… Read more »
In Central and Eastern Europe, conservative nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland are causing alarm in western European capitals that democracy itself is under sustained challenge in the post-communist half of Europe,… Read more »
Modern democracies operate within a framework of rationalism. Dismantle it and the space is filled by prejudice. Fear counts above reason; anger above evidence. Lies claim equal status with facts,… Read more »
Today’s illiberals are less likely to be organized around systematic philosophies like Fascism and Communism than was the case in the years between the two world wars—the last time… 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 »
The European Union is founded on a set of common principles of democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights. But whereas candidate Member States are vetted for their… Read more »
A pan-European rights body said on Monday it would review a newly amended Polish surveillance law, in a fresh challenge to the conservative government that reflects international concerns over… Read more »