Poland represents the gravest illiberal challenge to European democracy, says the Economist: Since taking office in 2015 the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party has stacked the courts, skewed… Read more »
India and China are jostling for influence in Iran and Central Asia, Nikkei reports, as New Delhi’s 7,000km transport corridor cuts across Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. Prime Minister Narendra… Read more »
The lives of Russian kleptocrats in Britain are suddenly fraught with new anxieties, the Washington Post reports: Critics in London of Russian President Vladimir Putin are reevaluating their need for… Read more »
When Iraq’s national elections open on May 12, they will mark a shift away from the large ethnic and sectarian blocs seen on previous ballots, with candidates more attuned to… Read more »
The US and other Western democracies “are getting increasingly uneasy about China’s political development and the nature of Chinese influence abroad. Ideology once again defines the terms of the US-China relationship,” analyst… Read more »
The Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (above) is an exemplar of Palestinian civil society, notes Council on Foreign Relations analyst Elliott Abrams. The group, which monitors corruption in Gaza and… Read more »
The populist threat to democracy “would be sure to grow” unless policy-makers address changes in the nature of employment and “rebuild the links among work, opportunity, and economic security,” according… Read more »
With migration, Russian aggressiveness and Brexit, the European Union is taking the western Balkans seriously again, the New York Times reports: The bloc’s strategy for the Western Balkans, published in February,… Read more »
Hungary is no longer a democracy, says Nóra Köves, an activist with the pro-democracy Eötvös Károly Institute. “I wouldn’t say that, no. Not, I think, any more. We are heading to… Read more »
Plenty of critics have adopted “illiberal democracy” as a description not just of Hungary, but of redesigned political systems in countries as different as Poland and Turkey. Yet “illiberal democracy”… Read more »
