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Articles on Democracy

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A crowd wait in a stadium in Jimma on June 16, 2021 for an electoral campaign rally of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. EDUARDO SOTERAS/AFP via Getty Images

Ethiopia’s elections are needed. But they face credibility challenges

In Ethiopia’s new and unsettled political space, there are issues related to the current electoral rules, the performance and strength of the opposition parties, and to campaigning.
Benjamin Netanyahu sits in the Knesset before parliament voted June 13, 2021, in Jerusalem to approve the new government that doesn’t include him, Amir Levy/Getty Images

It wasn’t just politics that led to Netanyahu’s ouster – it was fear of his demagoguery

Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t ousted just for typical political reasons, such as other politicians’ ambitions or grievances. He was thrown out because he was seen as a threat to democracy.
Instead of asking how universities might benefit from shifting courses online permanently, we ought to ask how students might suffer from fewer opportunities for lived experience and practice. (Shutterstock)

The problem with online learning? It doesn’t teach people to think

We ought to worry that the pandemic has made it even easier to reduce teaching to disseminating knowledge.
Taking a selfie during the #ENDSARS protest in Lagos in 2020. Social media was used extensively to mobilise demontrators. Adekunle Ajayi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Nigeria’s Twitter ban could backfire, hurting the economy and democracy

President Muhammadu Buhari’s Twitter shutdown will be hard to enforce and could have dire consequences for Nigeria’s fragile democratic institutions and economy.
Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele promised voters change. Instead, he seems to be reviving El Salvador’s authoritarian past. Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

El Salvador’s façade of democracy crumbles as president purges his political opponents

El Salvador ‘is inching back toward its authoritarian past’ after President Nayib Bukele fired five supreme court justices and the attorney general – essentially the only checks on his power.
Bills have a long journey that includes going through the parliamentarian’s office in the Senate. Here, a corridor in the Senate. dkfielding/iStock/Getty Images Plus

The obscure, unelected Senate official whose rulings can help – or kill – a bill’s chance to pass

The Senate has a lot of rules, and its parliamentarian interprets what those rules allow – and what they don’t. That can mean a bill will face either huge obstacles, or very few obstacles to passage.
Rep. Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, speaks to the press at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on May 12, 2021. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Representative Cheney calls for order

Rep. Liz Cheney may have been exiled from her party’s leadership, but she’s after a bigger thing: the restoration of politically conservative values in the GOP and its voters.
Young women are on the front lines of the anti-coup protesters in Myanmar, defying traditional gender roles. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Myanmar’s anti-coup protesters defy rigid gender roles – and subvert stereotypes about women to their advantage

Myanmar’s culture values men over women – and the military, which staged a Feb. 1 coup, brutally enforces the patriarchy. But Gen Z democracy activists are busting stereotypes with their struggle.
Protest signs on the ground before a march on March 28, 2021, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to denounce President Jovenel Moïse’s efforts to stay in office past his term. Valerie Baeriswyl/AFP via Getty Images

Haitians protest their president in English as well as Creole, indicting US for its role in country’s political crisis

Haitian president Jovenel Moïse is accused of overstaying his term, embezzling funds and dismantling parliament. Protests are a hallmark of his presidency – but the language of them has changed.
South Africa’s Constitutional Court is considered the bedrock of the country’s democratic order. Here it is in session in 2019. Photo by Alon Skuy/Sowetan/Gallo Images via Getty Images

South Africa’s 1994 ‘miracle’: what’s left?

The growing defence of South Africa’s beleaguered constitutional democracy is bolstered by African thinker Mahmood Mamdani’s latest book.
Police arrest a protester at a Moscow rally in support of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who fell ill while in prison and is now hospitalized. Alexander Demianchuk\TASS via Getty Images

For Vladimir Putin and other autocrats, ruthlessly repressing the opposition is often a winning way to stay in power

There’s not much the world can do to stop authoritarian rulers from persecuting their political opponents, as shown by the standoff over Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is ill and imprisoned.

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