Lyudmila M. Alexeyeva, R.I.P.
Democracy and human rights advocates are mourning the loss of Lyudmila M. Alexeyeva, a leader of the Russian human rights movement in the Soviet Union and in the era of… Read more »
Projecting Islamic ‘soft power’ in wake of failed Arab Spring
U.S. disengagement from the daily irritations of Middle East politics has encouraged Arab allies—particularly Saudi Arabia—to adopt more aggressive foreign policies, which has in turn required an ideological language for… Read more »
Inside China’s audacious global propaganda campaign
Beijing is buying up media outlets and training scores of foreign journalists as part of a worldwide propaganda campaign of astonishing scope and ambition, say Louisa Lim and Julia Bergin. China’s rapid… Read more »
How democracies slide into authoritarianism
In “The Captive Mind,” Czeslaw Milosz documented the collusion that accompanies democracy’s collapse. While his message holds special relevance for those living in autocracies, its resonance extends to both free… Read more »
‘Neo-autocracy’: turning democracy into a tool of oppression
Władysław Frasyniuk (above) championed democracy in the face of Communist rule in Poland in the 80s. Now, he warns the freedom he fought for is starting to slip away. (The… Read more »
How to save Ethiopia’s democratic revolution
If the democratic uprisings that swept across the states of the former Soviet Union in the early 2000s were “colour revolutions”, then Ethiopia’s counts as a multicoloured one, with flags… Read more »
How authoritarians are ‘dismantling democracy from the inside’
Authoritarian learning facilitates the ‘dismantling of democracy from the inside’, The Washington Post’s Amanda Erickson writes. It used to be that autocrats came to power through coups or by enacting states… Read more »
Georgia a ‘trailblazer for democracy in Caucasus’ or facing ‘uncertain future’?
Georgia “is a trailblazer for democracy in the Caucasus region” but it needs support from the West in order to maintain its liberal democratic trajectory, says president-elect Salomé Zourabichvili. “During… Read more »
How the West lost the (dis)information war
How did the U.S. and its partners so badly underestimate Russia’s ability to project influence using modern soft power technologies? Global Risk Insights asks in a must-read analysis. One of the… Read more »
Ukraine: trans-Atlantic alliance should counter Russian aggression
U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker says Russia needs to release the Ukrainian sailors taken captive in the Kerch Strait in late November by Christmas or “before the new… Read more »