Search Results for: Western Balkans

China’s ‘hub and spoke strategy’: COVID-19 geopolitical turning point?

     

COVID-19 signals a global paradigm shift because even before the pandemic, the world was already in the grips of a far-reaching transformation, analyst Ullrich Fichtner writes for Der Spiegel. The… Read more »

Pro-democracy actors’ powerful message at a time of moral crisis

     

The picture for democracy and civil society was mixed across the European Neighbourhood in 2019, according to Jerzy Pomianowski, Executive Director of the European Endowment for Democracy (EED). Some of… Read more »

Democratic resilience – new directions for civil society support

     

The acquittal of civil society activist Osman Kavala followed by his absurd rearrest shows the abysmal state of rule of law and democracy in Turkey, notes analyst Marc Pierini. The… Read more »

The payback playbook: A strategic plan to fight democratic backsliding

     

Democracy is facing major challenges, yet suggestions of a global crisis of widespread or systemic backsliding are not warranted, according to data from the largest democracy database ever compiled. The… Read more »

‘Harder edge’ to China’s sharp power threatens democracies

     

China is pushing to build up cultural “soft power” to complement the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $60 billion infrastructure program it has launched as part of the Asian… Read more »

Democracy vs. kleptocracy

     

Democracy may be facing a crisis, but…. Now is a time “for resolve, not panic,” says Stanford University’s Larry Diamond. In his  latest book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage,… Read more »

Russia’s soft power set to divide Council of Europe’s democracies

     

The late Russian president Boris Yeltsin once said his country’s entry into the Council of Europe would help create a “new, greater Europe, free from dividing lines” and “united by common… Read more »

Anti-government protests in Montenegro, Serbia and Albania prompt talk of ‘Balkan Spring’

     

It all started with a video posted on social media: a secret recording from 2016 that appears to show a well-known local tycoon hand over an envelope containing bundles of cash… Read more »

‘Ordinary Heroes’: post-conflict reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina

     

A huge fireworks display and subsequent cultural-entertainment program in Sarajevo attended by dozens of Bosnian officials, were a subtle sign of Beijing’s growing imprint on the region, RFE/RL’s Alan Crosby… Read more »

Cyber attacks could ‘taint’ democratic governments’ legitimacy

     

Cyber-attacks could turn elections into “tainted exercises” that undermine Western democracies, the foreign secretary has said. In a speech in Glasgow, Jeremy Hunt said authoritarian regimes view democratic elections as… Read more »