In The News

Straits Times: Mixed Reactions Over Xi’s Expanded Power

Lim Yan Liang February 26, 2018
China’s Parliament plans to remove the term limits for China’s presidency. The rationale is to support reforms and a 30-year modernization plan. State-run media expressed approval for the plan to allow Xi Jinping to serve beyond 10 years while the response was mixed between criticism and support for stability on social media, reports Lim Yan Liang for the Straits Times. China's censors...

Politico: How Facebook Changed the Spy Game

Asha Rangappa December 19, 2017
Law enforcement agencies strive to thwart propaganda and disinformation campaigns, but social media has opened up a new frontier in shaping public opinion. Facebook reported deleting hundreds of accounts based in Russia and paid to promote polarizing material during the 2016 US presidential campaign. “The rise of social media platforms makes the pervasiveness and impact of these operations today...

The Washington Post: In the Middle East, The Dream of Democracy Is Dead

Asli Aydıntaşbaş November 27, 2017
In 2010 a Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest harassment that limited his ability to earn a living. His action triggered region-wide populist uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa that became known as the Arab Spring. Fleeting hopes for radical reconstruction of state and society now seems dead, buried and even forgotten. Asli Aydıntaşbaş observes...

Spiegel Online: The End of the End of History

Klaus Brinkbäumer November 27, 2017
Political systems of the West may no longer be perceived as the most effective way to organize human societies, and Francis Fukuyama’s prediction that democracy and Western values would triumph after the fall of communism in 1989 now seems presumptuous: “in the past 11 years, freedom around the world has receded. Of 195 states only 87 are still free, 59 are partially free and 49 are not free at...

BBC: Catalans Declare Independence as Madrid Imposes Direct Rule

October 27, 2017
Catalan voters chose to seek independence from Spain in a special referendum and the Catalan regional parliament soon followed suit with 70 members in favor, 10 opposed, two abstained and more than 50 members not indicating a position. The Spanish Constitutional Court is expected to rule the regional parliament’s decision as illegal. Spain has responded by approving direct rule over the region,...

Al Jazeera: Catalonia Independence Referendum

David Child and Charlotte Mitchell September 28, 2017
Voters in Catalonia have scheduled a referendum to decide if they want to break from Spain and become an independent republic. The region of 7.5 million people accounts for 15 percent of Spain’s population and 20 percent of economic output, report David Child and Charlotte Mitchell for Al Jazeera. “The region, which forms one of Spain's 17 ‘autonomous communities,’ has its own police force...

The Economist: Can Political Islam Make It in the Modern World?

September 21, 2017
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Islamist parties across the Middle East and North Africa have achieved mixed results. As the Economist notes, the legacy of the Muslim Brotherhood, which began as an anti-imperialist social and educational movement in Egypt under Hassan al-Banna in 1928, gave way to Islamist offshoots, each iteration borne out of its own historical particularities and social...