Hong Kong authorities arrested fifteen prominent activists, including former lawmakers, in what is thought to be the largest crackdown (HT: CFR) on the city’s pro-democracy movement since mass protests began… Read more »
Like an asteroid, coronavirus is the textbook example of an exogenous shock. The threat came from beyond. Yet the pathogen offers a unique stress test of each country’s resilience, argues… Read more »
The crisis atmosphere of the coronavirus response raises the risks of corruption as aid flows to graft-prone healthcare systems. But it’s not too late to put safeguards in place, writes Abigail… Read more »
China has been buying up ads on U.S. social-media sites and adopting online tactics reminiscent of Russian disinformation campaigns in an apparent attempt to shape the story internationally about the… Read more »
Whereas democracies operate on consensus, autocrats react with sweeping measures threatening the rule of law. Who is better prepared for the COVID-19 crisis? Deutsche Welle asks: Austrian democracy researcher Tamara… Read more »
China and some of its acolytes are pointing to Beijing’s success in coming to grips with the coronavirus pandemic as a strong case for authoritarian rule. Yet democracies do appear… Read more »
The major dividing line in effective crisis response will not place autocracies on one side and democracies on the other, argues Stanford’s Francis Fukuyama. Rather, there will be some high-performing… Read more »
COVID-19 presents us with both our worst public health crisis in a century and the greatest challenge to democracy since World War II, says Stanford’s Larry Diamond, who offers a… Read more »
Pandemics are democratizing experiences and can also catalyze social change. The Atlantic’s Ed Yong writes: People, businesses, and institutions have been remarkably quick to adopt or call for practices that… Read more »
As autocratization accelerates, democratic resistance against this trend is growing, according to new V-Dem Institute data. For the first time since 2001, autocracies became a majority of the world’s political… Read more »