Search Results for: Civil Society

Hong Kong protests: Prospect of Chinese army intervention rattles nerves

     

The idea of Chinese tanks rolling into Hong Kong would have been unthinkable only a few months ago. But as the Asian financial centre enters its third month of protests… Read more »

Is Poland retreating from democracy?

     

In both Eastern and Western Europe, social-democratic parties have shifted to the center on economic policy, not only sapping the electoral strength of these parties, but also opening up political… Read more »

Latin America: How to stop corruption and save democracy

     

In Venezuela and throughout the region, corruption will not be eliminated overnight. But to reduce it, several things must occur, Susan Segal, AS/COA’s president and CEO, writes for Americas Quarterly’s… Read more »

Protest to politics? Lessons & narratives from Lebanon’s 2018 elections

     

Last year, elements of civil society ran against the established traditional political parties in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, drawing on the experience of the 2016 Beirut Madinati (“Beirut is my City”)… Read more »

Ukraine: potential for change – or will vested interests divert reform?

     

Now that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s new party, Servant of the People, has won a majority in Ukraine’s parliament, the potential for real change exists. But it comes with the risk… Read more »

How China’s ‘malign influence’ is corroding democracies

     

The primaries for Taiwan’s forthcoming presidential election are highlighting fears over China’s political influence. Pro-Beijing media are being credited with populist Han Kuo-Yu’s victory to lead the opposition, The Financial… Read more »

‘Beyond the Veneer of Reform’: Ricardo Bofill, an icon of the Cuban resistance, R.I.P.

     

Pro-democracy activists are mourning the loss of a leading architect of Cuba’s civil society and human rights movement. “The seed of this civil society was planted on January 28, 1976,… Read more »

Ukraine’s ‘unsung heroes’: NGOs leading democratic renewal

     

Ukraine’s citizens have high hopes for the recently-elected president, are less pessimistic over the country’s trajectory and support the Donbas region remaining part of Ukraine, according to a nationwide poll from… Read more »

Every crisis is an opportunity? A chance to reform Moldova’s captured state

     

After Moldova’s constitutional crisis was unexpectedly resolved, there is an opportunity to introduce genuine democratic reforms in a post-Soviet state whose institutions have been held captive by oligarch rule, according… Read more »