Autocracy vs. Democracy: Climate Edition
Blog: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - Carnegie Publications
To fight climate change, democratic countries must find a way to work with autocratic ones.
Blog: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - Carnegie Publications
To fight climate change, democratic countries must find a way to work with autocratic ones.
In: Journal of European public policy, S. 1-24
ISSN: 1466-4429
Blog: International Republican Institute
“The United States once again finds itself locked in a great-power competition with hostile revisionist powers. Like the first iteration, Cold War II is at its core an ideological clash over the future of the global order. Does Washington want a world in which the balance of power tilts toward freedom and individual liberty, or […]
The post How the U.S. Can Deter and Defeat the Axis of Autocracy appeared first on International Republican Institute.
Blog: Soziopolis. Gesellschaft beobachten
Blog: Soziopolis. Gesellschaft beobachten
Franco-German Observatory of the Indo-Pacific
In: Comparative politics, Band 56, Heft 2, S. 149-171
ISSN: 2151-6227
Under what conditions do dictators enact pro-worker legislation? Conventional wisdom suggests that heightened mass discontent motivates dictators to make policy concessions to defuse revolutionary threats. However, a more protective labor law may decrease elites' economic benefits-and
thus loyalty to the regime. I argue that limited judicial independence helps dictators control the distributional outcomes of the law and therefore better respond to the twin challenges magnified by labor reforms. To test this argument, I conduct a cross-national analysis of sixty-eight autocracies
from 1970 to 2008. I then examine an illustrative case-China's 2008 Labor Contract Law-to illuminate how a non-independent judiciary gives autocrats more leeway to balance the interests of elites and the masses. This article contributes to our understanding of authoritarian survival strategies
amid distributive tensions.
In: Mediterranean politics, Band 29, Heft 1, S. 26-47
ISSN: 1743-9418
World Affairs Online
In: Perspectives on politics, S. 1-2
ISSN: 1541-0986
In: Latin American politics and society, S. 1-4
ISSN: 1548-2456
SSRN
Blog: Global Voices
"Each round of flawed elections was a lost opportunity for Azerbaijan to step away from post-Soviet autocracy towards democracy."
In: Defending American democracy
"Chronicling and analyzing resistance to the threat that autocracy poses to American liberal democracy, this book provides the definitive account of both Trump's efforts to erode democracy's essential elements and opposition to those efforts. This book is about the threat of autocracy, which antedated Donald Trump and will persist after he leaves the stage. Autocrats blur or breach the separation of powers, use executive orders to bypass the legislature, pack the courts, replace career prosecutors with political appointees, abuse the pardon power, and claim immunity from the law. They seek to hobble opposition from civil society by curtailing speech and assembly, tolerating and even encouraging vigilante violence, and attacking the media. As this book demonstrates, Trump followed the autocrat's playbook in many ways. He was a huckster of hate, aiming his vitriol at women and racial minorities, and making attacks on immigrants the focus of his 2016 campaign, as well as his first years in office. Nevertheless, his rhetoric and policies encountered widespread opposition - from religious leaders, business executives, lawyers and bar associations, and civil servants. His executive orders (on which he relied) were almost all struck down by courts: including the first two "Muslim bans," the detention of children and their separation from parents, the diversion of military funds to build the border wall, the insertion of a citizenship question in the Census, and limits on asylum. Just as Trump sought to weaponize the criminal justice system against his political opponents, so he manipulated it to defend his cronies, derailing some of their prosecutions. Trump also intervened in courts martial and criminal prosecutions of those convicted of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and those accused of desertion and terrorism. Again, however, there was resistance: as some career prosecutors withdrew from cases or resigned when subjected to political pressure and federal courts convicted all of Trump's allies- even though the president went on to use his unreviewable pardon power. This book, then, documents the abuses that are characteristic of autocracy, and assesses the various forms of resistance to them. This definitive account and analysis of Trumpism in action, as well as the resistance to it, will appeal to scholars, students and others with interests in politics, populism and the rule of law; and, more specifically, to those concerned with resisting the threat that autocracy poses to liberal democracy"--
In: Defending American democracy
Chronicling and analyzing resistance to the threat that autocracy poses to American liberal democracy, this book provides the definitive account of Trump's assault on truth and his populist attacks on expertise, as well as scientific and legal opposition to them. This book is about the threat of autocracy, which antedated Donald Trump and will persist after he leaves the stage. Pandering to populists, autocrats attack professional expertise in an Orwellian world, where ignorance is strength and where, as Hannah Arendt wrote, people believe everything and nothing. Trump sought to inflame xenophobia by blaming China for the pandemic and closing U.S. borders, then declaring victory and, when that proved premature, wrongly blaming the number of tests for escalating cases. He sought to muzzle government scientists and denounced those who defied or evaded his directives as members of the deep state, preferring to rely on inexpert buddies. He elevated obscure scientists who promoted quack cures and opposed effective preventive measures while sidelining the few reputable experts, who nevertheless courageously resisted political interference. In addition to these, as this book documents, independent scientists, scientific journals and professional associations also outspoken, often more so. Even the pharmaceutical industry sought to preserve the integrity of a federal bureaucracy that assured the public the drugs they consumed were safe and efficacious. Following Trump's numerous efforts to distort and undermine expertise, this book describes and evaluates the resilience of scientific and legal defenses of truth. This definitive account and analysis of the Trump's populist rejection of truth and expertise will appeal to scholars, students and others with interests in politics, populism and the rule of law and, more specifically, to those concerned with resisting the threat that autocracy poses to liberal democracy.
Blog: Australian Institute of International Affairs
The pre-poll rigging in Pakistan, involving the expulsion of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as a political entity and its leader Imran Khan as its leader, underscores the broader erosion of democratic principles nationally. The consequences are likely to be regional and even global if Pakistan's slide towards autocracy continues.
In: Routledge advances in South Asian studies, 46
"Pathways of Autocratization addresses contemporary global politics' one of the most important questions: how does a country regress from a democracy to an autocracy? This book offers a novel framework for understanding the processes that erode democracy and lead to autocracy and explains a specific instance of democratic backsliding in Bangladesh: the world's eighth most populous country. With probing analysis of events and trends of Bangladeshi politics, especially since 2009, the book contextualizes the country's autocratization process within global trends and compares it with others which have trod a similar path in recent decades, including Bolivia, Cambodia, Hungary, Poland, the Philippines and Turkey. The book discusses the implications of institutional changes, the role of pliant media, the contribution of ideology, and the conduct of international actors in the autocratization process while also mapping future trajectories for the country. Succinct, incisive, and thought provoking, this book is rich in its theoretical robustness and empirical details. This is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of democratic backsliding and prospects for reversing this trend"--