Confronting Authoritarianism
In May 2018, the people of Malaysia transcended distinctions of class, religion, and ethnicity in order to vote for democracy and reform against a long-ruling party riddled with corruption.
April 2019
Volume 30, Issue 2
Weaponizing Interpol
Globalized authoritarian regimes are increasingly abusing Interpol’s notice system to go after political opponents based abroad. These regimes seek not only to punish their critics, but also to legitimate their own acts of repression.
30 Years After Tiananmen
30 Years After Tiananmen
The Editors’ introduction to “30 Years After Tiananmen.”
30 Years After Tiananmen: The Meaning of June 4th
China’s 1989 democracy movement was brutally suppressed, but a former student leader argues that it also planted the seeds for the growth of Chinese civil society and for future democratization.
30 Years After Tiananmen: Memory in the Era of Xi Jinping
Xi reads Tiananmen as a cautionary tale, and he has sought to centralize power and reverse years of ideological atrophy. By controlling the past, he is trying to determine how the Chinese will view their present and future.
30 Years After Tiananmen: The Young and the Restless
The CCP’s strategies for delivering economic and social benefits without democracy are proving deeply flawed. A particular threat to China’s stability is posed by the country’s restless single males.
30 Years After Tiananmen: Dissent Is Not Dead
The Chinese Communist Party wields highly effective means to quash dissent, but Chinese intellectuals and interest groups continue to push for change.
30 Years After Tiananmen: Hong Kong Remembers
It was the impact of Tiananmen that made the democracy movement in Hong Kong a mass phenomenon. Today, the democratic cause in Hong Kong remains linked to the democratic cause in China as a whole.
Populists in Power
The historical record since 1945 gives us a picture of how populists operate once they hold political power. The record shows that populism is inimical to liberal democracy, and not a corrective to some of its failings.
Armenia’s Velvet Revolution
In 2018, a peaceful protest movement brought down Armenia’s semiauthoritarian government and ushered in a new political era, the culmination of a long struggle for national pride, self-determination, and democracy.
The Freedom House Survey for 2018: Democracy in Retreat
Key democratic norms remained under threat in 2018, but there were also unexpected breakthroughs in Armenia, Malaysia, and Ethiopia.
Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights
It is imperative that artificial intelligence evolve in ways that respect human rights. Happily, standards found in landmark UN documents can help with the task of making AI serve rather than subjugate human beings.
Rethinking Central-Bank Independence
Politicians increasingly are attacking central bankers—once viewed as bland, faceless technocrats—for wielding too much power.
Catalonia: The Perils of Majoritarianism
Spain’s system of Autonomous Communities had functioned fairly smoothly for decades following the country’s democratic transition, but events in Catalonia are putting it under unprecedented strain.
Nationalism, Democracy, and Memory Laws
Europe has seen a proliferation of laws governing historical memory, but they sometimes threaten to inflame social tensions and undermine liberal values.
The Era of Manipulation
A review of The People vs. Tech: How the Internet Is Killing Democracy (and How We Save It) by Jamie Bartlett.
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Bangladesh, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Estonia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Moldova, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo.
Documents on Democracy
Excerpts from: a speech by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian; a letter by Bernard-Henri Lévy, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Elfriede Jelinek, and Orhan Pamuk; tributes to Lyudmila Alexeyeva; and the Parliamentary Call for Global Democratic Renewal.