“What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the […]
One of Asia’s oldest democracies may be in jeopardy. Sri Lanka’s presidential election next month, is expected to bring to power another member of the Rajapaksa family, whose affinity for authoritarianism, violence, and corruption is well known. While Sri Lanka’s democracy survived the last test – an attempted constitutional coup by outgoing President Maithripala Sirisena […]
In much of the West, Netanyahu is perceived as a tough guy, cozying up to strongmen in European capitals and to President Donald Trump in Washington, but many Israelis understand there is a good deal of bluster behind this image. Though he is now unwilling to discuss a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, Netanyahu […]
After publicly escalating against Israel’s enemies across the region last month, Netanyahu has had to carefully manage the cycle of responses and counter-responses. And he’s also facing a duo of internal issues: a showdown with the semi-autonomous Palestinian government and a looming corruption investigation. Read Here – National Interest
Undeterred, Ali Milani carries on his mission. Which is convincing voters in this Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency to vote for him and boot out their current Member of Parliament — who also happens to be Boris Johnson. If Milani pulls it off, it would be one of the biggest earthquakes in British political history. Never […]
While American attitudes on foreign policy tend to change very slowly, surveys conducted since Trump’s election in 2016 capture some interesting shifts, especially among Democratic voters. In the era of “America first,” Democrats are even more likely than usual to rally behind U.S. allies and multilateralism. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
Trump can’t turn back to campaigning from governing, because he never really bothered to start governing in the first place. With the exception of cutting taxes and especially building a wall on the Mexican border, he’s never shown much interest in learning how the levers of power work or in using them. Read Here – […]
Amid the Bharatiya Janata Party’s landslide victory in India’s parliamentary elections, one result stood out, in the town of Amethi, near the border with Nepal. There, the family that has dominated Indian politics since the country’s independence more than 70 years ago suffered a humiliating blow: Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition Congress Party, […]
The standard contrast between Chinese authoritarian efficiency and Indian democratic dysfunction is, however, too simplistic. Authoritarianism is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for some of the special features of Chinese governance. Similarly, not all of the Indian state’s shortcomings are inherent in the country’s democratic system. Failure to appreciate such nuances risks overlooking three […]
The world’s fourth most populous country is a pluralist, multiparty democracy that officially extends civic and religious freedoms to everyone living across a staggeringly diverse archipelago. But by the time anyone even showed up at the polls, both the structure of this young political system and Jokowi’s turns toward the religious right meant that many […]
looking beyond borders 