Ours is the age of the rule by ‘strong men’: leaders who believe that they have been elected to deliver the will of the people. Woe betide anything that stands in the way, be it the political opposition, the courts, the media or brave individuals. While these demonised guardians of freedom are belittled, brushed aside […]
Many people seem to believe that authoritarian rulers deliver better economic results. And yet, with the possible exception of China’s Xi Jinping, Asia’s autocrats, from India to the Philippines, are presiding over increasingly fragile states and even more vulnerable economies. Read Here – Project Syndicate
When Muammar al-Qaddafi came in from the cold in the mid-2000s, the “mad dog” of the Middle East embarked upon top-down reforms that were friendly to international markets, investors, the United States, and Europe. Although he became the subject of sympathetic profiles in major Western media outlets, those articles almost never emphasised the fact that […]
Across Asia, the world has supposedly been witnessing the return of the strongman. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been grasping more and more control in his own hands since claiming power in 2012. Two years later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India and President Joko Widodo (known as “Jokowi”) in Indonesia won office by selling themselves […]
looking beyond borders 