Check out Ali Ansari’s article in National Interest for what The [must-read] Browser calls a “Superb account of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ evolution from a military unit into a ‘brotherhood’ with extensive business interests, only tactically allied with Ahmadinejad’s regime.”

According to the United Nations, the average Kenyan makes $777 a year. Yet members of Kenya’s parliament are among the highest paid in the world, with a compensation package of $145,565 (most of it tax-free). That is 187 times more …

Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, who presided over the country’s early tumultuous years of democracy, has died at the age of 69.

Wahid, known by his nickname Gus Dur, was a democratic reformer and advocate of moderate Islam. As …

Just as the 1970s saw the start of the Third Wave of democratization of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, the world of business is currently facing its own democratizing trends, Andrea Bonime-Blanc and Mark Brzezinski contend.

“For their own good and …

Critics have been too quick to vilify Iraqi democracy, writes Nimrod Raphaeli, but its viability is reflected in the ability of political actors to reach a compromise revision of the highly contentious Elections Law through bargaining rather than recourse …

Re-writing history is an essential part of Russia’s drive to restore its lost status, but democracy activists have questioned whether the Kremlin’s History Commission is really needed to discover the truth about its Soviet past.

“There are lots of debates …

As the unrest in Iran escalates, a split within the hard-line Revolutionary Guards or a clerical fatwa delegitimizing the government could precipitate sudden regime collapse and consequent revolutionary chaos, writes Brandeis University’s Nader Habibi.

The Green movement should …

The United States is considering targeted sanctions against leading figures in Iran’s government and security forces, but faces a difficult balancing act in trying to avoid alienating the Iranian people, while keeping the door open to a negotiated resolution of …

In a dual strategy of repression and counter-mobilization, Iran’s embattled regime has arrested hundreds of opposition activists following the recent Ashura protests, while rallying conservative forces against the democratic Green movement. Some reports even suggest that the hardline Revolutionary …

Veteran liberal journalist Nat Hentoff reveals the Castro brothers’ big dirty secret – the prevalence of institutionalized racism in Cuba – as detailed in the under-reported Statement of Conscience by African Americans:

• Afro-Cubans are experiencing strong and growing instances

…