In a country with 135 ethnic minorities, democratic elections have little meaning if the stateless, persecuted Rohingya people continue to be ethnically cleansed.
The absence of trust in a nation’s leader and government jeopardizes an effective response to a health crisis. It also creates a political crisis, a loss of faith in democracy.
A law to fast-track development consents is being fast-tracked itself. Before it’s too late, politicians should insist on greater protection against long-term environmental damage.
Unrest in the US looks familiar to Latin Americans, who are accustomed to resisting undemocratic governments – and to their protest movements being met with violent suppression.
Though many in the US are disoriented and disheartened by the lack of an effective federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, American thinker John Dewey would not have been surprised.
Pandemic devastation surrounds it on all sides, but tiny Uruguay has COVID-19 under control – just the latest win for a country that’s always stood out.
Paul R. Carr, Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO)
Surviving COVID-19 means reconsidering what type of world we want to build and live in, together. We can no longer feign being a democracy that is not democratic.
Latin American history shows that sending out troops to quell unrest is a perilous move even in strong democracies. Usually, protesters die. Sometimes, the end result is authoritarianism rule.
The cherished legal rights that Beijing seeks to suppress in Hong Kong were established, in part, by Vietnamese asylum-seekers who fought for their freedom in court in the 1980s.
Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Associate Research Professor, Political Science, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn State