Observers are questioning the integrity of the constitutional referendum in Azerbaijan, in which the government reported 91 percent approval of sweeping constitutional changes, including extending the presidential term and increasing… Read more »
We needn’t look to the post-Soviet “color revolutions” in Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004), let alone to the more recent demonstrations in Moscow against election fraud (2011–2012), for the source… Read more »
Whether Islam Karimov, who has ruled Uzbekistan with astounding brutality for the past 27 years, is dead or alive, his era is almost certainly drawing to a close. Two questions… Read more »
Russia has banned a 25th-anniversary tribute to the thousands who helped defeat an attempted coup by communist hardliners trying to topple Mikhail Gorbachev, The Times reports: Critics said the order… Read more »
The internet is an intuitive boon for democracy, according to Elizabeth Stoycheff, Assistant professor at Wayne State University, and Erik C. Nisbet, Associate professor at Ohio State University. It provides… Read more »
Resisting the Tyranny of the Possible. This was moral revolution, a revolution of conscience rooted in cultural reclamation, and it resonated through the region because it was entirely congruent with… Read more »
The European Union should press China to end its crackdown on civil society and peaceful dissent, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude… Read more »
Russia’s liberal opposition has been subjected to all kinds of pressure in the last few months, from leaked clandestine sex tapes to dubious court cases and physical violence. As parliamentary… Read more »
Although democracy promotion may have fallen out of favor with the U.S. public [see poll data below], such efforts very much remain in the national interest, argues Larry Diamond, a… Read more »
The EU is set to roll over its Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia for a further six months despite signs of the mood towards Moscow softening in some of the bloc’s member states,… Read more »