A new interdisciplinary study provides a grim warning to dictators and despots, and even leaders in democracies. Curbing press freedoms may irreversibly damage the economy.
Niger troops on patrol.
Photo by Sia Kambou/AFP via Getty Images
Although there had been an increase in violence in Niger since the last election results were announced, the attempted coup, on March 31, raised concerns to a new level in the volatile country.
Nigeria’s president Buhari chairing the 55th ordinary session of the ECOWAS.
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Tech companies’ use of dual-class share structures to keep control in the hands of founders and other insiders gives a handful of people power over enormous swaths of American life.
Celebrating Montenegrin independence on May 21, 2006.
Diminar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images
Western leaders learned the hard way 25 years ago that conflict in the Balkans can become ethnic cleansing. Add Russia into the mix, and Montenegro’s new problems are US and European problems, too.
The courts have become an integral part of Ghana’s electoral prcess.
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Issoufou has failed to strengthen fundamental democratic rights. If anything, the Issoufou era is a textbook case of democratic backsliding.
Adoring fans celebrated Brazilian ex-President Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva before he began a prison sentence for corruption in 2018. Lula’s conviction was recently annulled.
Miguel Schincariol/AFP via Getty Images)
From Europe to Latin America and the US, former world leaders are being investigated, tried and even jailed. In theory, this shows no one is above the law. But presidents and PMs aren’t just anyone.
The past five to 10 years have seen the rise of artificial intelligence, which is increasingly posing a threat to democracy.
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The desire of former TNI and police officers to enter politics has more to do with personal advancement than with advancing the institutional interests of the military or police.
Volunteers wearing protection suits carry posters to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the pandemic in Indonesia.
ANTARA FOTO/Maulana Surya/foc.
The US system was designed with more checks and balances than many other successful democracies – the filibuster’s main function is to give undue power to a vocal minority.
Trump might have popularised the idea of fake news, but 26 centuries ago Plato and Thucydides were convinced intellectuals and poets were duping the people and undermining democracy.
A Donald Trump supporter wears a gas mask and holds a bust of him after he and hundreds of others stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images
Given the current, often erroneous, use of the term ‘fascist’ to describe political movements and leaders, it’s important to determine what fascism is and is not.
Simon Bridges’s attack on New Zealand’s ‘wokester’ police commissioner might work as politics, but it fails to grasp the nature of policing in an open society.
Femi Kuti performing in Mexico City in 2019.
Photo by Pedro Gonzalez Castillo/Getty Images
The truth remains that no artist through Nigeria’s postcolonial years has contributed close to what Fela did – and continues to do - for human rights and social justice.
The U.S. was one of 33 countries to experience election-related violence in 2020 – the worst year for peaceful elections ever.
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Elections are getting less safe in democracies and nondemocracies alike. Last year was the bloodiest year for elections in decades, with 54% of all national votes marred by some kind of violence.