Resisting China’s erosion of Hong Kong’s democratic institutions

     

Since Hong Kong’s democratic movement began some three decades ago, Hong Kongers have relied on Beijing’s good will to achieve democracy, says democracy advocates Joshua Wong (left) and Jeffrey Ngo… Read more »

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Libya: time for a reset?

     

Libya may descend into a “free-fall” if the peace process among its myriad of political actors is not “reset”, a new report warns. An accord between rival factions reached last… Read more »

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Defending democracy a Sisyphean task

     

History does not follow a teleological path. There is no straight road towards freedom, notes David Motadel, an Assistant Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. Throughout… Read more »

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How populism can strengthen democracy, not imperil it

     

Populism has long been a contested and ambiguous concept, notes Michael Kazin, who teaches history at Georgetown University: Scholars debate whether it is a creed, a style, a political strategy,… Read more »

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Beyond Dysfunction and Devastation: Iraq, the Arab Spring, and Lessons for Today

     

Kanan Makiya* has been described as the Arab world’s “Solzhenitsyn” for courageously bearing witness to unspeakable cruelty, notes the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His new critically acclaimed novel, The Rope, is… Read more »

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Tunisian minister ousted for linking Saudi ideology with extremism

     

A religious affairs minister has been fired from the government after linking Saudi Arabia’s religious ideology with extremism, Deutsche Welle reports: The minister, Abdeljalil Ben Salem, had been relieved of… Read more »

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Hybrid Putinism: ‘a mafia state with a totalitarian society’?

     

The question of what constitutes democracy did not have time to be hashed out in the Russian public sphere before that sphere began disappearing a decade and a half ago,… Read more »

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Populism and protest: is Poland a harbinger?

     

The 2015 victory of Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party is an example of the rise of contemporary authoritarian populism, say analysts Joanna Fomina and Jacek Kucharczyk. The PiS’s rise… Read more »

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Kremlin-sponsored anti-Americanism a common denominator for Europe’s left and right

     

Over the past few years, anti-Americanism has become an integral part of any debate on foreign and domestic policy in Russia, notes Anton Barbashin, a managing editor at Intersection. You… Read more »

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