The entire politics desk of one of Russia’s top daily newspapers, Kommersant, quit on Monday in protest over censorship after two veteran reporters were fired. The walkout at the newspaper controlled… Read more »
Ukraine is “the single most important front of [the] war against authoritarian expansion,” according to Stanford University’s Francis Fukuyama. “Clearly it matters a lot to Putin that Ukraine does not… Read more »
In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture in 1975, Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov listed the names of over 120 political prisoners he knew of at the time. Now the Russian human… Read more »
Most protests and demonstrations in Russia now appear to be taking place in small and mid-sized cities, sometimes spreading to larger cities and ultimately to Moscow, notes Russia-watcher Paul Goble…. Read more »
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled former Russian oligarch who was arrested by Putin’s police in 2003 and languished in prison for ten years, observed of Boris Nemtsov’s murder: “I think Boris… Read more »
Russia’s global ranking in the latest edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index fell by nine places to 144th from 135th in 2017, putting it in the same position as… Read more »
The techniques used by anti-democratic state and non-state actors to disrupt or influence democratic processes are constantly evolving, says the European Parliamentary Research Service. The use of algorithms, automation and… Read more »
For years after the end of the Cold Year it was possible to believe democracy was on the march across the globe. Now there are as many reasons to believe… Read more »
Liberal democracies are facing an authoritarian resurgence and various forms of sharp power projections on the part of Russia and China. These countries are becoming more authoritarian and prohibiting independent… Read more »
Two prominent advocates of freedom and human rights were honored on Thursday at the 8th annual Oxi Day Courage Awards, held at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington DC, notes… Read more »