The Flemish historian and writer David Van Reybrouck has recently triggered a minor sensation in the Low Countries by insisting that Western democracies are suffering so much election fatigue (electoral…
Uganda’s president has ruled for three decades – and the opposition is getting stagnant too.
The century since the first world war is littered with the broken promises of Muslim rulers to bring about a transition to more representative forms of government.
AAP/Asmaa Abdelatif
The rise of Islamic State and its declaration of the caliphate can be read as part of a wider story that has unfolded since the formation of modern nation states in the Muslim world.
Ricky Muir makes up his mind based on how he thinks the proposed policy will affect ordinary Australians like himself.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Australia’s political system would be better off with more ordinary people and fewer career party politicians in the Senate. It would thus be more representative of ordinary Australians, not less.
Voting in Uganda’s Karamoja region.
Reuters/Goran Tomasevic
South Africans’ faith in the post-apartheid system of democracy is clearly slipping - and some even suggest that a return to apartheid would be a good thing.
America’s way of choosing its president is marred by murky voting methods, a warped calendar, and too much hype.
It may be accepted wisdom that Australians are disengaged from politics, but there are plenty of other indicators to suggest otherwise.
AAP/Richard Wainwright
The people of Haiti are furious at their leaders and want to have their say – but the outside world has other priorities.
Volunteers prepare to canvass in support of Oregon’s Measure 91, a ballot initiative that legalized recreational marijuana in Oregon.
REUTERS/Steve Dipaola
Data shows that voters organizing ballot initiatives on issues like marijuana use and plastic bag bans are doing more than creating DIY laws – they are spreading happiness.
Has the American political system fallen so low that it requires a massive injection of anti-democratic behaviour to make it more ‘democratic’?
Reuters/James Glover II
The dwindling ranks of those who line up to defend America’s system are able to do so only if they view it through a prism of its lofty 18th-century ideals, rather than 21st-century realities.
President Xi Jinping and the rest of the Chinese leadership do not get to positions of national leadership without undergoing decades of trials to demonstrate their capacity to run a country.
Reuters/Carlos Barria
The China Model features political meritocracy at the top, democracy at the bottom and experimentation in between. The West can learn from the best of Chinese leadership, even if it is authoritarian.
For better or for worse, various countries around the world charted a new course last year. What lies ahead for 2016?
South Africa was hit by an unprecedented wave of student protests against fee hikes, racism and for the decolonisation of curriculum.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
Many works published on decolonisation originate from Ngugi wa Thiongo’s idea of decolonising the African mind. Imperialism, he writes, has left its mark on the minds of the previously colonised.
Political conventions may be challenged and redefined by every new government, but it is their role in promoting political accountability that ensures the health of our democracy.
Graffiti by LMNOPI in Brooklyn, New York.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters