Venezuela's opposition has called a 48-hour strike to stop the Maduro government from rewriting the nation’s constitution. But grassroots democracy may not be able to save the Bolivarian Republic.
Facing hunger, scarcity, sickness, protest and no clear path toward salvation, Venezuela is on the brink of something, but just what is not clear.
ビッグアップジャパン/flickr
Stephan Schmidt, The Conversation and Catesby Holmes, The Conversation
The best news and analysis of Venezuela's dangerous descent into crisis, written by local economists and political scientists who are living it every day.
Zambia has become increasingly ruled by fear under President Edgar Lungu.
EPA/Philippe Wojazer
Zambia has gone from a country where people engaged freely in open political debate to one where most people now look over their shoulders to see who’s listening.
A child walks past Mongolians holding up banners at a protest against offshore account holders in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in March.
(AP Photo/Ganbat Namjilsangarav)
Amid the rising forces of populism and nationalism, it's easy to fear a new age of tyranny. But history proves tyrants are often no match against democracy and its defenders.
A young woman protests at a “Not My President” demonstration against Donald Trump in New York in December 2016.
(Shutterstock)
According to famed anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, the central question of our times is whether we’re witnessing the worldwide rejection of liberal democracy and its replacement by some sort of populist…
Zambia’s President Edgar Lungu is tightening his grip on power even further.
EPA/Abir Sultan
Zambia's president is securing powers to consolidate his political control while generating 'plausible deniability' to whether or not he has fatally undermined democracy.
Those who’ve stayed in Venezuela are there to fight.
Hugo Londoño/flickr
Some 60,000 Brazilians are killed each year, accounting for 10% of all homicides worldwide. As terrorised voters look to authoritarian leaders to impose order, Brazil's democracy hangs in the balance.
The leaders of Turkey and India have plenty in common.
Protestors hold banners saying ‘No to the stigmatisation of civilians’ at a meeting of the Hungarian parliament’s justice committee, prior to the bill’s approval.
Laszlo Balogh/Reuters
FROM OUR ARCHIVES (UPDATED) Hungary has passed a law monitoring the finances of foreign-funded NGOs, another blow to civil society in Viktor Orban's increasingly "illiberal democracy".
Gone but not forgotten: Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s funeral, 2008.
EPA/Yuri Kochetkov
Recent elections in Latin America have suggested a retreat from left-wing politics and populist leaders. But results from Ecuador's 2017 presidential election suggest otherwise.
Turkey may soon become one of the few countries in the history of democracy to vote for the death of democracy.
Steve Evans/flickr
If the 'yes' vote prevails in this month's constitutional referendum, the Turkish people may be in the rare position of democratically approving the death of their own democracy.
Could neo-nationalist leaders join hands across the world? Vladimir Putin (Russia) and Narendra Modi (India) in Goa, 2016.
Mikhail Metzel/Kremlin.ru
ARC Laureate Fellow, Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney and McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Harvard University
Associate Professor of Communication, Political Science, and Environmental Policy and Faculty Associate with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University
