Why Alexey Navalny is Important in Russia and the World
A look at how Navalny challenges Putin's regime
What Brazilian Democracy Needs
The country cannot advance until it has accountable political leadership
Romanian Tragedy, Romanian Miracle
Glimmers of hope in European politics
On Friday night a heavy metal concert at a downtown Bucharest night club burst literally into flames, as a spark from a pyrotechnic display set off a conflagration that caused panic and pandemonium among the roughly 400 young people trapped inside. Over thirty people were burned to …
Romania’s Threatened Freedom of Speech
A report on an authoritarian backlash
On October 7, the Romanian Senate passed a law whereby anyone accused of “social defamation” can be subject to penalty. The financial sanction for individual charges varies between 1.000 RON and 30.000 RON (225 Euros-6.750 Euros), whereas fines for group defamation can go up to 22.500 Euros. The person who initiated such a mind-blowing act, Liviu Dragnea, is arguably one of the most questionable …
Adding Injustice to Injury
One year on from the Gezi Park protests in Turkey
Our colleague, Zeyno Ustun, is back in Istanbul this month. We corresponded about the situation there on the occasion of the anniversary of the Gezi protests. She reports political paralysis with maximum police presence and sent a report from Amnesty International that she judges to summarize the situation accurately. Zeyno came across the following piece in Revolution News. It is re-posted here with permission. –Jeff Goldfarb
The repression of peaceful protest and the use of abusive force by police continues unabated one year after the Gezi Park protests.
Across Turkey, more than 5,500 people have been prosecuted in connection with the Gezi Park protests. …
Conceptions of Corruption, Its Causes, and Its Cure
This is a very brisk walk through a topic that should be taken slowly and treated in depth, but inevitably therefore at much greater length. Not the least of the reasons for engaging with it so briefly is that the institutions, if not always the practice, of Britain, the United States, and other liberal democracies today reflect efforts to rein in corruption that began in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but which drew on very ancient arguments about the individual and institutional failings that rot individual character and bring about the downfall of states by weakening their ability to resist foreign attack, or by turning accountable republican government into some form of tyranny. More recent arguments focus on the economic cost of corruption, leading some writers to distinguish quite sharply between political and economic corruption. …