How to de-glorify and discredit ISIS
How can a genocidal and an apocalyptic group like ISIS become a beacon of hope for segments of excluded and marginalized communities in the West and beyond? asks Kawa Hassan (above),… Read more »
How can West start winning global battle for democracy?
Why are the world’s despots thriving, and how can the West start winning the global battle for democracy? Have we hit democracy’s high water mark? These questions are among those… Read more »
Morocco: PJD electoral success highlights new breed of Islamism
In last Friday’s legislative elections in Morocco, the ruling Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD, left) again secured a plurality, but while the elections were hailed as proof of… Read more »
Pakistan: journalist travel ban ‘against the norms of democracy’
Pakistan’s government should immediately drop the travel ban on a leading journalist and respect a free and open working environment for the media, Human Rights Watch said today: On October… Read more »
Kleptocracy not only a problem of ‘faraway, nasty countries’
A sorry parade of arms smugglers, oligarchs, defense contractors, mafia dons, drug dealers, gambling fraudsters, sanctions breakers, and kleptocrats emerge from the Panama Papers, journalist Alan Rusbridger writes for The… Read more »
The problem with plebiscites
The unanticipated and widely debated results in Colombia and Great Britain – indeed, the very decision to use the mechanism of popular consultation to identify the citizenry’s will – obliges… Read more »
Russian strategic culture aids export of political instability
After years of marginalization, Russian military strategic culture has returned to a position of great influence inside Russia’s political system, and strikingly so over the last four years, argues Stephen… Read more »
Turkey’s 30-year coup
According to Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the recent attempted coup was not a legitimate sign of civic unrest, notes Dexter Filkins. In fact, it did not even originate in… Read more »
Vietnam moving to smother dissent
There are growing signs that Vietnam’s government is moving to smother dissent, as the one-party regime in recent days has labeled a pro-democracy group a terrorist organization, imprisoned a blogger… Read more »
Venezuela in a ‘peculiar predicament’
Venezuela is no longer a country split between roughly two antagonistic halves: a pro-government left and an opposition-minded right, notes Francisco Toro, the editor of CaracasChronicles. A broad and diverse… Read more »