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Articles on Authoritarianism

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Opposition supporters calling for free and fair elections outside the offices of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in Harare in 2018. Jeksai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images.

Zimbabwe elections 2023: a textbook case of how the ruling party has clung to power for 43 years

Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections look like their predecessors: stolen. But this one is a bit different. Opposition strategies and regional responses have changed too. What does this mean for the future?
Many Europeans aren’t happy with the way their country’s politics are run. Does this mean they could accept to live in a regime other than a democracy? Photo taken at a protest against pension reform, 2019. Jeanne Manjoulet / Flickr

Are Europeans really democrats?

Sweeping new research shows many Europeans could accept to live under a non-democratic regime.
In this July 2013 photo, supporters of Egypt’s democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi chant slogans against Egyptian Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi at Nasr City, in Cairo, Egypt. El-Sissi removed Morsi two weeks earlier with support from the U.S. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

The world’s most powerful democracies were built on the suffering of others

Western democracies can best help the world by doing more to live up to their highest ideals and approaching their relations with the rest of the world with humility borne from historical awareness.
Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in power since 2003 and has tried to strengthen the executive branch during that time. AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis

Many once-democratic countries continue to backslide, becoming less free – but their leaders continue to enjoy popular support

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, president of Turkey, and Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, are two leaders who have consolidated power using a similar playbook.
Pro-resistance social media pages share photos of graffiti like this. Provided by Michaela Grancayova and Aliaksei Kazharski.

How protest movements use feminine images and social media to fight sexist ideologies of authoritarian regimes – podcast

From the Arab Spring to the Belarus Awakening and the ongoing Iranian protest Women, Life, Freedom, female-centered imagery and social media are battlegrounds of resistance and oppression.
Supporters, including one wearing a t-shirt bearing former President Donald Trump’s photo that says “Political prisoner,” watch as Trump departs the federal courthouse after arraignment, June 13, 2023, in Miami. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

Fascism lurks behind the dangerous conflation of the terms ‘partisan’ and ‘political’

When everything is seen as political – indictments, Supreme Court decisions, scientific findings – a democracy may be on its way to fascism.
Pinar Selek at a conference in Paris in 2010. Streetpepper/Wikimedia

Debate: The case of Pinar Selek is a stark reminder of the dangers faced by academics in Turkey and around the world

A refugee in France, the Turkish sociologist has been persecuted in her country for 25 years. Her case is emblematic of the repression of academics in Turkey – and elsewhere.
Former President Donald Trump reacts to the crowd after he finished speaking at a campaign rally in support of Sen. Marco Rubio in Miami in November. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

We can’t fight authoritarianism without understanding populism’s allure

The newest class of right-wing populists aims to not only dismantle the guardrails of democracy, but also the most fundamental principles of the rule of law. We must prepare.
While communists make up the bulk of portrait carriers in Russia, officials are also increasingly putting in a good word for Joseph Staline. Alexey Borodin/Shutterstock

70 years after his death, Stalin’s ghost still haunts Russia

Stalin, who died on March 5, 1953, was partially rehabilitated in the decades that followed. These days, he is in some respects a source of inspiration for Vladimir Putin.

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