The fictitious world of Judge Dredd highlights authoritarianism, including laws against outsiders, walls around cities and rules that deny people basic rights. Are the Dredd comics a cautionary tale?
A view of the General Assembly hall at the start of the 2019 Climate Action Summit.
EPA/Justin Lane
Africa has already felt the effects of Donald Trump’s climate change denialism. Recent events are also raising political issues of keen interest among the continent’s democrats.
Mohammed Morsi, a member of the controversial Islamist political organization the Muslim Brotherhood, was Egypt’s first democratically elected president. He was overthrown in a coup in 2013 and died on trial this June.
Reuters/Amr Dalsh
A few years ago, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey’s Gulenists were running the show. Now both religious movements face political repression. How did they fall so far, so fast?
Senegalese women cast their ballots in the presidential elections in February.
EPA-EFE/Nic Bothma
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, threatens to slash funding to sociology and philosophy departments. It was just the opening shot in a new battle against the humanities.
Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, on June 27, several days after his election.
REUTERS/Kemal Aslan
Turkey’s authoritarian leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was handed a big defeat recently when his party’s candidate lost a crucial election contest. Is this the beginning of Erdogan’s demise?
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has engineered constitutional changes that could see him rule for life.
Daniel Irungu/EPA-EFE
Twelve reporters have been killed so far this year and 172 are in jail, according to a new report on press freedom worldwide. The US places 48th of 180 countries ranked, down two spots from 2018.
Unyielding protesters put an end to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s 26-year old authoritarian rule.
EPA-EFE/Stringer
The role of the military in toppling authoritarian rulers, after intensive popular protests, raises questions about how the AU’s policy against coups should be applied.
Riot police at an anti-government march in Managua, Nicaragua, Oct. 14, 2018.
Reuters/Oswaldo Rivas
A massive protest movement exploded across Nicaragua in April 2018, threatening to topple the country’s authoritarian regime. What happened to Central America’s ‘tropical spring?’
Campaign ads for Ali Bongo in his successful 2009 bid to succeed his father as president of Gabon. The Bongo family has lead Gabon uninterrupted for over 50 years.
Reuters/Daniel Magnowski
Gabon’s strongman president, Ali Bongo, is barely clinging to power after contested elections, a stroke and a coup attempt. The Bongo family has run this stable central African nation for 52 years.
Syrian anti-government protesters march as part of an uprising against the country’s authoritarian regime, in Banias, Syria, April 17, 2011. The Arabic banner at center reads: ‘All of us would die for our country.’
AP/Anonymous
On the eighth anniversary of the Syrian uprising, scholar Wendy Pearlman writes about the people who risked their lives and raised their voices to fight the oppressive rule of Bashar al-Assad.
The Algerian population has taken to the streets in a peaceful and nonviolent manner to protest against President Bouteflika’s running for a fifth term of office.
Ryad Kramdi/AFP
Demonstrations against Abdelaziz Bouteflika have opened up a rare space for debate and self-expression – and could signal a change to a more free and involved civil society in Algeria.
A rally celebrating the second anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, March 18, 2016.
AP/Ivan Sekretarev
Richard Carney, China Europe International Business School
Almost one-third of countries around the world are authoritarian regimes with the trappings of democracy. Their bad behavior poses a threat to real democracies, as the United States recently learned.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro created a new cryptocurrency called the ‘Petro’ to combat hyperinflation.
Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
When an elected leader turns autocratic, the economy tends to suffer. That’s because, in a functioning democracy, economic policy is made jointly, with lawmakers playing a key role.
Mauro still has enough money to buy the loyalty of Venezuela’s military — but his government is going bankrupt, so that will change.
Reuters/Handout
A coup seems so imminent in Venezuela that people are debating whether Maduro’s overthrow would be good or bad for Venezuelan democracy. But history suggests a coup may be less likely than it seems.
Can one country really have two presidents?
AP Photo/Boris Vergara
At least a dozen countries are supporting the Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself Venezuela’s legitimate leader while President Maduro rejects calls to resign.
Fighting deadly diseases such as Ebola is a strong case for providing donor aid to authoritarian countries like the DRC.
EPA-EFE/Ahmed Jallanzo
Aid has never been just about helping people. It’s also about gaining influence and exercising soft power.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addresses supporters after the parliamentary election in Budapest, Hungary, April 8, 2018.
RREUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has transformed from a liberal into an authoritarian leader who uses the tools of democracy to attack civil society. Hungarians are protesting in the streets.
Presidents have traditionally given Oval Office addresses during only the gravest of crises.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
We asked experts on ethics, constitutional law and European political history to analyze Trump’s Oval Office address. Here’s what they heard in his speech about ‘crisis’ at the US-Mexico border.