Democracy Digest

China: ‘hypersensitive’ authorities resist reform, upgrade censorship

Michael Allen — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:36:43 +0000

China’s government is hunting down signatories of the Charter 08 reform manifesto and upgrading its internet censorship software to allow the authorities to identify and suppress dissent much earlier and efficiently. Nearly 7,000 intellectuals, farmers, students, journalists, and activists have endorsed Charter 08, modeled after the Czechoslovakian dissidents Charter 77, which warns of “the possibility of [...]

Samuel Huntington: Third Wave theorist, democratic advocate

Michael Allen — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:13:07 +0000

During the chaos of Portugal’s democratic revolution in April 1974, Mário Soares, the provisional government’s foreign minister, visited Henry Kissinger. The U.S. Secretary of State was concerned that Portugal’s communist party would seize power and urged the democratic socialist Soares to take a tougher stance against the Stalinists. “You are a Kerensky,” Kissinger said, “I believe your [...]

Zimbabwe: jailed activists prompt concern, solidarity

Michael Allen — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:42:15 +0000

A Zimbabwean judge has ruled that 16 democracy and human rights activists must remain in jail over the New Year. They are charged with plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe, said Irene Petras, director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy. On December 22, 2008, the Steering Committee of [...]

A New Year resolution for Misha: get Georgia’s reform back on track

Michael Allen — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:51:01 +0000

Government control of key media outlets and interference in editorial decisions is diluting Georgian journalism’s democratic function, observers suggest. Democracy cannot exist without the kind of scrutiny and accountability that independent investigative journalism provides, says Sozar Subari, Georgia’s ombudsman for human rights. President Mikheil Saakashvili’s government has come under fire for its opaque decision-making. Even after [...]

Crisis strains Putin-Medvedev “tandemocracy”

Michael Allen — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:09:47 +0000

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday signed a law extending presidential terms from four years to six, apparently expediting Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. The move fed speculation that Putin, eager to act before the financial crisis further erodes his popularity, is unlikely to wait until scheduled elections in 2012 to return to the office. The [...]

Promoting democracy - the Wilsonian way?

Michael Allen — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:14:42 +0000

As analysts speculate on which elements, if any, of the Bush foreign policy legacy the new Obama administration should retain, and even ask whether liberals should promote liberal democracy, a new book notes that American presidents from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton made democracy promotion a centerpiece of foreign policy. Even realist icon Henry Kissinger [...]

Nicaragua: curb Ortega’s ‘dictatorial tendencies’

Michael Allen — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:23:08 +0000

Using international leverage to arrest Nicaragua’s downward spiral toward authoritarian rule could prevent President Daniel Ortega from “morphing” into another Robert Mugabe, argues Kevin Casas-Zamora, senior fellow in foreign policy at Washington’s Brookings Institution. Ortega’s Sandinista movement has reacted violently to the alleged rigging of last month’s elections, cancelling the registration of two opposition parties, and [...]

Egypt’s hybrid regime - stable, but challenged

Michael Allen — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:30:04 +0000

Egypt’s political evolution will “shape the timing, character, and success of democratization throughout the Arab world”, claims a new study. The country provides a particularly insightful case for understanding regional prospects for democracy, writes Bruce Rutherford, because of the relatively open and historically rooted rivalry between the “liberal, Islamic, and statist conceptions of political order [...]

EU ‘lacks political will’ to promote democracy in its neighborhood

Michael Allen — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:11:23 +0000

While the European Union’s gravity model has been an incredibly successful engine of democratization within its borders, the EU is doing a poor job promoting democracy in its near neighborhood, a new report concludes. “Overall trends have been disappointing in most cases,” according to a report from FRIDE’s Richard Youngs. “Democracy and human rights assistance remains [...]

Resurgent autocrats no alternative to liberal democracy?

DemDigest — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:34:41 +0000

Unlike the twentieth century’s failed autocracies, contemporary authoritarianism represents an alternative form of capitalism and a sustainable rival to liberal democracy. Or does it? Democracy may be facing a backlash or, at least, have stalled; China has married a one-party dictatorship with capitalist modernization; rising energy prices have fuelled autocratic regimes from Central Asia and the [...]