After years of being ruled by leaders in their 80s, the Gulf Arab states are getting younger rulers. These young leaders won’t necessarily gravitate to democratization, say RAND analysts Becca… Read more »
Like many African leaders, Yoweri Museveni preached democracy even as he was seizing power through the barrel of a gun, writes FT analyst David Pilling: In his stirring inaugural speech… Read more »
Venezuela’s recently-elected assembly has approved a pardon for political prisoners. The move is the latest in the country’s “transition from authoritarianism to democracy,” said opposition MUD coalition leader Jesus Torrealba…. Read more »
The ultimate blame for Libya’s failed transition must lay with Muammar Gaddafi, who bequeathed Libyans a country without a state, notes a leading analyst. Leaders of the new Libya found it… Read more »
Human rights and democracy advocates are calling on President Barack Obama to use the occasion of this week’s U.S.-ASEAN summit at California’s Sunnylands retreat to publicly raise concerns about… Read more »
Five years after the Arab Spring, the crisis of legitimacy that helped precipitate it has lost neither its resonance nor its urgency, according to a qualitative survey of Arab experts… Read more »
The assertion that democracy is better than autocracy at facilitating the move into prosperity butts up against the theory that authoritarianism is more conducive to rapid economic growth (as… Read more »
The upcoming US-ASEAN summit will include leaders – like Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for 25 years – who were previously considered too ruthless and repressive to be received… Read more »
Sub-Saharan Africa was long seen as relatively immune to the call of Islamist militancy because of its unorthodox religious practices — rooted in Sufism, a more mystical mode of Islam… Read more »
In a move that confirmed the growing restrictions and pressure on the Turkish media, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş has said his government is ready to remove bans that… Read more »