Hun Sen jettisons last shreds of Cambodia’s democracy
Hun Sen, Cambodia’s prime minister, has vowed to spend another decade in office, a day after his main opponent was charged with treason amid an escalating crackdown on dissent, The… Read more »
Search Results for: legitimacy crisis china
What explains the populist surge? Interests or identity?
The abiding characteristic of populism is its division of the world into a virtuous people on the one hand, and corrupt elites and threatening outsiders on the other, notes FT… Read more »
Burma’s transition: ‘yet to give substance to strategy’
A senior Myanmar government official on Tuesday denied there was ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in the troubled northwestern state of Rakhine, where a military operation aimed at the minority… Read more »
Autocracies fear ‘existential threat’ of democratic contagion
Think of two significant trend lines in the world today, writes Brookings analyst Robert Kagan. One is the increasing ambition and activism of the two great revisionist powers, Russia and… Read more »
Eclipse of the West’s soft power?
While the resurgent authoritarians of Russia and China are investing in the expansion of soft power, that of the Western democracies is dwindling, analysts suggest. The European Union’s approach to… Read more »
Russia’s information warfare – strategic ‘social engineering’
Russia’s ongoing information warfare against Western democracies goes well beyond hacking, according to leading expert. “It’s political engineering, social engineering on a strategic level,” said Thomas Rid, a professor of… Read more »
Democracy in retreat?
Despite the current democratic regression, there are three reasons why democracy advocates should maintain hope for the future, says Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy. The first… Read more »
Iran poll balances ‘external loosening’ with ‘internal stiffening’
Iranians headed to the polls Friday in elections made easy for conservatives after sweeping bans that left many pro-reform candidates off the ballots, adding further political pressures on Hassan Rouhani,… Read more »
Dawning of a new era? Geopolitical and vox populi risks converge
Once largely confined to less-transparent emerging market economies, the post-global financial crisis saw the return of political risks to the advanced democracies as well, while challengers to Western liberalism continue… Read more »
January 2009 Bulletin
Subscribe to the Democracy Digest Blog RSS feed here. Contents Obama’s inaugural – nuanced support for democracy assistance? Engage Iran’s ‘grand alliance’ for reform Afghanistan: corruption and ‘legitimacy… Read more »