Can North Korea ever become a democracy?
North Korea is arguably the most closed and repressive society in the world. But over the past 25 years, the failures of North Korea’s totalitarian system have created the possibility… Read more »
Tag: National Endowment for Democracy
Tunisia’s ‘Robocop’ revolution: No easy lessons from new Arab democracy
Despite Tunisia’s vote for change, enduring miseries are driving an exodus of youth, Reuters reports. A survey by the Arab Barometer research network said a third of all Tunisians, and… Read more »
Budding social activism, legitimacy crises feed Central Asia’s dramatic transformation
Central Asia is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Its governments face legitimacy crises at a time when long-standing leaders are being replaced by little-known, untested ones. Social contracts, by which citizens… Read more »
Fukuyama vs. Navalny: Fighting fear in Russia
Last week, Warsaw hosted the fourth Boris Nemtsov Forum, welcoming dozens of prominent experts, journalists, and activists to discuss “fighting fear in Russia and beyond,” Meduza reports. On October 9,… Read more »
Why history isn’t moving inexorably in the direction of democracy
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it seemed that history was moving inexorably in the direction of democracy and free markets—that we’d reached the “end of history” and could… Read more »
Eastern Europe divided on democracy 30 years after communism
Thirty years ago, a wave of optimism swept across Europe as walls and regimes fell, and long-oppressed publics embraced open societies, open markets and a more united Europe. Three decades… Read more »
The ‘real anti-system candidate’ set to curb foreign funds, remake Tunisian politics
Law professor Kais Saied, an independent candidate who did little campaigning, was projected to win a landslide victory (The FT reports, HT:CFR) in the country’s presidential election. Saied, a social… Read more »
Democracy’s precarious position: New social contract for survival and renewal
The U.S. government has supported democracy for decades. While this principle has never been applied evenly—all Presidents have made compromises in the name of national security—the policy paid off with… Read more »
Lessons for Sudan from Nigeria’s ‘militarized democratic experiment’?
Africa’s latest emerging democracy, Sudan, deserves the benefit of Nigeria’s experience, its civilian opposition having recently signed a pact of diarchy — supposedly transitional — with the military, argues Nigerian author… Read more »
Russia’s maturing opposition confronts ‘calibrated repression’
Russia has declared opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation a “foreign agent”. The move by the justice ministry means the organisation will now be subject to more checks by the authorities,… Read more »