Freedom of expression is really the essence of liberal democracy, the foundation on which all the other rights, institutions and democratic processes are based, said Carl Gershman, addressing a recent conference sponsored by the Václav Havel Library in Prague. …

As world leaders prepare to attend Friday’s funeral of Václav Havel, the former dissident and Czech president, some of …

It seems somehow fitting that Vaclav Havel should pass away a year on from the self-immolation of Mohammad Bouazazi and just hours before the death of Kim Jong-Il.

While the Tunisian street vendor, whose sacrifice sparked the Arab Awakening, personified …

Democracy is “under pressure” in many parts of the world, a new global survey suggests. The democratic regression of recent years is continuing, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2011, and only 11 percent of the world’s …

Islamist parties that are poised to taste power following recent elections in the Arab world should embrace democratic norms as well as procedures by ensuring that post-transitional governments respects the full spectrum of human rights, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary …

The United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) invites civil society organizations to apply for funding for projects to advance and support democracy.

UNDEF supports projects that strengthen the voice of civil society, promote human rights, and encourage the participation of all …

The U.N.-endorsed NATO intervention scored a double-whammy: preventing a massacre and ousting a brutal dictatorship in an apparent vindication of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. But R2P supporters, including such “unreconstructed liberal interventionists as Samantha Power and Bernard-Henri Lévy…

The popular revolts of the Arab Spring could be the herald of a fourth wave of democratization, but authoritarian regimes are acting aggressively and preemptively to maintain the status quo, a leading practitioner suggests.

Democracy assistance is increasingly contested …

“Internet space – which has seemed so open and free – could become less so,” says Michael Posner. If civil society and business don’t collaborate to defend the Internet, he cautions, “the autocrats will figure it out for us.”

The …

The world’s emerging democracies are “inconsistent” democracy and human rights advocates, judging by their votes on the UN’s Human Rights Council, General Assembly, and Security Council, writes Ted Piccone. But domestic advocacy groups may be able to pressure governments …