Worldcrunch
The arrest this week of top opposition leaders shows Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed is drifting ever farther away from basic democratic practices. Yet there’s no mass uprising, unlike in 2011, perhaps because economic factors are foremost on people’s minds.
Last week, Myanmar’s armed forces bombed a gathering in a village in Sagaing Region, killing scores of innocent victims. It was not an isolated incident.
To prevent France’s current institutional crisis from leading to a regime crisis, it is not a question of the much criticized pension reform — or even that Emmanuel Macron must resign. A change is needed in the very way French democracy functions.
France, Israel, United States: these three democracies all face their own distinct problems. But these problems are revealing disturbing cracks in society that pose a real danger to hard-earned progress that won’t be easily regained.
NGOs around the world are facing difficulties as governments criminalize them. The crackdown leaves states less accountable, while the biggest victims are the most vulnerable.
The revelations of a clandestine digital operation that provides services to destabilize nations and manipulate opinion are a wake-up call for democratic states to take urgent action, including the need to hold Big Tech accountable.
Colombia’s reformist president has promised to tackle endemic violence, economic exclusion, pollution and corruption in the country. So what’s new with a politician’s promises?
Consider the inverse of “collateral damage.” Envision Russia’s defeat and the triumph of a democratic coalition offers reflection on the most weighty sense of costs and benefits.
Newspapers in Brazil, as well as elsewhere in North and South America and Europe, marked the unprecedented attack on Brazilian democracy.
What do we make of the echos from the U.S. Capitol assault on Jan. 6? Will Lula be able to heal Brazil’s democratic institutions?
The revolt in Iran began in protest of police brutality and the Islamic Republic’s rotten structures, but quickly became a “revolution of minds,” hastening the rise of a national community united in its resolve to live in a free and lawful state.
Many lives have been lost, rights trampled and dreams crushed. But through the haze, the world took the right turn on many fronts this past year, from Ukraine to Iran to China. Trying to take stock amid the suffering.
Predictions about the collapse of Russia are as old as the country itself. Yet a consistent centralization of power has gone on for decades, weakening Russia’s territories and republics. The war in Ukraine changes everything and nothing.
Acclaimed Italian writer Roberto Saviano is in court this month facing defamation charges from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. With this essay, Saviano stands by his words, and his right to use them.
Backers of the opposition’s presidential candidate see hope in upstart victories in Malawi and Zambia. But in Zimbabwe, a single party has been in power for more than four decades.
After the Brazilian presidential election and the American midterms, checking the temperature on the state of democracy in a world that has been heading in the opposite direction for too long.
French writer and political scientist Dominique Moïsi was in Israel last week for the country’s latest elections, which saw the victory of a hard right coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He warns that there is an inherent conflict between the self-declared “start-up nation” and the anti-science, anti-liberal program of the new government.
After 19 years of work, Juan Gilbert says he has invented an “unhackable” voting machine. Ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. midterms, some hardware hope for the future of free elections.
Brazilians head to the polls this week in a runoff between leftist Lula and the far-right Bolsonaro. The elections will have far-reaching consequences for Latin America, and perhaps even the Western world.
The West must address the degradation of democracy domestically, and worldwide. It’s on the right side in the war in Ukraine. And in China. But what doesn’t ring true is President Biden’s flaunting the democratic cause as a foreign policy stick.
Rishi Sunak, a Hindu of Indian origin, has become the UK’s prime minister. His religion has not factored at all into debates — a fierce contrast to a religiously divided India.
Authoritarianism and conflict are on the rise around the world. Yet democracy will not be saved on the battlefield but in the classroom. Schools, and more importantly, how teachers teach is crucial in showing the next generations that there is no single defining point of view.
Brazilian politics has a long history tainted with violence. As President Jair Bolsonaro threatens to not accept the results if he loses his reelection bid Sunday, the country could explode in ways similar to, or even worse, than the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol after Donald Trump refused to accept his defeat.
It’s no longer accurate to say the “rise” of the far-right — fascism is already here. After Trump’s election, a group of prominent analysts gathered to discuss how the left could fight back. Six years later, their insights are more urgent and insightful than ever.
It’s passed down by bloodline, and Charles has publicly vowed to a life of service. But is a rather un-beloved old white man with a complicated past the right royal for this moment? Even if a monarchy is undemocratic by design, popular opinion matters today more than ever. Just look at the Spanish monarchy.
Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Jair Bolsonaro all share what seems a natural antipathy toward women — yet it is ultimately because they fear them. And with good reason: When women participate in political movements, they are more likely to succeed — which is bad news for authoritarianism.
An overwhelming majority of Chileans quietly but very clearly voted to reject a draft constitution, which it feared would lock the country into a radical socialist mould.
Brazil’s Agência Pública reveals that Gettr, the social network run by Donald Trump’s former adviser Jason Miller, has sponsored conservative conferences in Brazil ahead of October’s presidential elections, which Steve Bannon has called the most important in South American history.
Ukraine has long had an issue with oligarchs standing in the way of progress, and they have almost always been linked to the Kremlin. Now in the context of the war with Russia, President Zelensky has no choice but to tackle this problem.
The expansion of constitutional rights has become a rhetorical tool for populist governments, when they do nothing to address much more vital questions like wealth inequality and social injustice. Latin America offers sharp examples, past and present.
In the cradle of the Arab Spring, democracy is once again at stake.
Boris Johnson’s resignation is another example of the political crises in the democratic world. But that does not necessarily mean that dictators and despots will win.
The Rappler CEO and Nobel Peace Prize winner spoke with The Wire‘s Arfa Khanum Sherwani about how journalists everywhere need to prepare themselves for the worst-case scenario of government-ordered closure and what they should do to face up to such a challenge.
Thousands of students and young people were detained during Hong Kong’s democracy protests in 2019. Now with criminal records, many are struggling to re-integrating into a changed society
Those calling for Kyiv to negotiate away part of its territory, understand neither history nor the current reality of Ukrainian democracy.
A German soldier was reprimanded because of an online dating profile. She was punished for her sexual freedom — the same freedoms that the armed forces claim to be fighting for abroad.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO, says his plans to reform the electoral system are a way to save taxpayer money. A closer look tells a different story.
In Poland, the support for the war effort against Russia is linked not only to history but to an aggressive male-dominated narrative, tinged with tales of martyrdom and acceptance of sexual violence.
In Ukraine, those who do not want to fight on the front or who want negotiations cannot say so publicly for fear of accusations of being traitors.