On November 14, a fight broke out in the Sri Lankan Parliament. When the Speaker tried to call a vote, a group of MPs heckled him and rushed the podium. A rival faction tried to push the hecklers back. Men traded punches. One brandished a knife. A lawmaker cut himself trying to steal the Speaker’s microphone and ended up […]
An engaged citizenry is often considered a sign of a healthy democracy. High levels of political and civic participation increase the likelihood that the voices of ordinary citizens will be heard in important debates, and they confer a degree of legitimacy on democratic institutions. However, in many nations around the world, much of the public […]
Technology is making it easier and easier to create the impression that someone said or did something that, in reality, they did not. For malicious actors armed with that impersonation software, the possibilities for havoc are endless: political sabotage, humiliating fake sex videos, or unparalleled interference in another country’s politics. Read Here – The Weekly […]
Pakistan’s general election is set for July 25, and the battle lines are clear. Three parties are contending for the national leadership—the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan’s People’s Party (PPP), and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)—and all three have big issues to confront: the problem of deep ethnic divisions, the implications of Chinese-backed economic growth, […]
In every single African country, young people make up the majority of the population – and they are generally very ill-served by their ageing governments. Young leaders, where they can be found, don’t just come with energy; the right ones can bring new ideas, technocratic competence, and a new idealism. Instead, some of the continent’s […]
What a difference a couple of decades make. Back in the early to mid-1990s, Americans (and some others) were pretty much convinced that U.S.-style liberal democracy was the wave of the future worldwide…Fast-forward to 2017, however, and autocracy seems back in vogue. Russia has reverted to de facto dictatorship, Chinese President Xi Jinping has consolidated […]
A 38-nation Pew Research Center survey finds there are reasons for calm as well as concern when it comes to democracy’s future. More than half in each of the nations polled consider representative democracy a very or somewhat good way to govern their country. Yet, in all countries, pro-democracy attitudes coexist, to varying degrees, with […]
For two decades after the end of the Cold War, the direction of international influence was clear: it radiated from liberal democracies outward, as the West sought to spread its model of governance around the world. With the help of Western-led democracy promotion, the thinking went, authoritarian states would be relegated to the dustbin of history. That has changed. […]
U.S. President Donald Trump just sought to redefine the West. In a speech to cheering crowds in Warsaw on Thursday, Trump described the West’s values in terms of religion and culture and called for the defense of its civilization against radical Islam. It amounted to a manifesto for his foreign-policy vision. The address included repeated invocations of […]
When Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule two decades ago, the city was seen as a model of what China might one day become: prosperous, modern, international, with the broad protections of the rule of law…Yet as the 20th anniversary of the handover approaches on Saturday, that perception of Hong Kong as something special — a vibrant crossroads of […]
looking beyond borders 