Democracy Archives - Page 25 of 97

North America

A Vote for Sanders is a Vote to Restore the Commonwealth

Government is essential to defending truth and dignity — and that requires changing minds

January 7, 2020 • by Bernard Avishai

This past year, though, I spent much of my time torturing myself with choice. My YouTube account would show me flitting -- admiringly, on the advice of pundits, and for all the obvious reasons -- from Pete Buttigieg, to Elizabeth Warren, to Kamala Harris, then back to Warren, then, for ...

A Vote for Sanders is a Vote to Restore the Commonwealth

Latin America & Caribbean

Democratic Degradation and the Bolivian Coup

A response to Andrew Arato’s reflections on Bolivia

December 30, 2019 • by Leonardo Avritzer

In his recent article “Coup, Revolution or Negotiated Regime Change: The Case of Bolivia,” Andrew Arato responds positively to the latest political developments in La Paz. In disagreement with his Latin American students, he expresses the following caution: “I hesitate to concede the point [there was a coup] to begin ...

Democratic Degradation and the Bolivian Coup

Latin America & Caribbean

Authoritarian Coup or Deposed Authoritarian Leader

A response to Andrew Arato’s reflections on Bolivia

December 27, 2019 • by Enrique Peruzzotti

In the past, coups were coups; they were all-or-nothing events where there could be no disagreement over what occurred. Coups consisted of the unlawful removal of an elected government by a (non-elected) segment of the state apparatus (usually the military) and the temporary suspension of the constitutional order in a ...

Authoritarian Coup or Deposed Authoritarian Leader

Latin America & Caribbean

Reflections on Bolivia’s Coup d’État

December 24, 2019 • by Nicolás Figueroa García-Herreros

Clearly his hesitant rejection of attempts to frame these events as a coup derives from the very complexity of the situation. After all, what some people see as a coup, others can plausibly describe as a revolution. From Arato’s perspective, Morales not only broke the principle of legality when he ...

Uncategorized

Nancy Pelosi’s Leverage over Mitch McConnell

She can threaten to reopen the House investigation into the President

December 21, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

But what is done is done. And this past week the Democratic majority in the House voted to impeach Trump.. And then things took a strange, and perhaps not unexpected turn. McConnell and other Senate supporters of Trump very publicly expressed their disdain toward the impeachment; McConnell indicated that he was consulting with the ...

Nancy Pelosi’s Leverage over Mitch McConnell

Democracy

30 Years Ago, A Moment of Joy and Hope

December 13, 2019 • by Adam Michnik

*** I clearly remember that November evening. In my country, Poland, events of great importance were taking place. Poland’s first non-Communist government had already been operating for three months. The prime minister was Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a broad-minded catholic intellectual and long-standing advisor to Lech Wałęsa. Just at that time, a delegation from the Federal Republic ...

North America

Why I Don’t Like the Leading Democratic Candidates to be President of the United States

And why I would support anyone of them

December 11, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

“I am devastated. All of my public commitments are under attack. I thought there was progress during my lifetime. Democracy and the positive developments of democratic culture, free speech and expression, social justice and the fight against racism, sexism, class exploitation, xenophobia, and much more, all seemed to advance, even ...

Why I Don’t Like the Leading Democratic Candidates to be President of the United States

North America

With Impeachment, Messaging is Everything.

And the Democrats seem behind the curve.

December 9, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Strategic communication. Trump’s White House has eliminated press briefings, viciously attacked the press and indeed all independent media sources, and organized a cynical and relentless campaign of disinformation via Twitter, Facebook, Fox News, Breitbart, YouTube, the One America News Network, and a range of other media. Trump in office -- with the ...

With Impeachment, Messaging is Everything.

Europe & Central Asia

Romania in 2020

Fighting Corruption Just Got Harder because of Trump

December 6, 2019 • by Maria Bucur

The big unknown for Romania moving into 2020 is its relationship with the United States. Though Romanians have become more anti-American in the last few years, they are still the second most pro-American post-socialist state in Europe (Poland is in first place). Since 1990, the U.S. ambassador has played a ...

North America

Who is the Audience for the Judiciary Committee Hearing?

An Evaluation of the House Democratic Leadership’s Performance

December 5, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

I have long expressed my exasperation with the timid way in which the House Democratic leadership has only reluctantly moved toward impeachment, even in the face of the damning Mueller Report, and then has proceeded in the most narrow and legalistic way imaginable. Trump is a very dangerous President, and it ...

Who is the Audience for the Judiciary Committee Hearing?

Europe & Central Asia

The Romanian 2019 Presidential Elections

Populism on the retreat

December 5, 2019 • by Maria Bucur

Romania was one of the post-communist countries to join the neoliberal bandwagon slower than the Visegrad group and made it to EU membership just when the 2008 global crisis was about to break. For over a decade after the end of the brutal Nicolae Ceausescu dictatorship, old communist apparatchiks together ...

The Romanian 2019 Presidential Elections

Latin America & Caribbean

Coup, Revolution, or Negotiated Regime Change

What is happening in Bolivia?

December 4, 2019 • by Andrew Arato

At the same time, I fervently hope that what is occurring in Bolivia is not a revolution. Of course that hope may well be disappointed, especially if the right wing (supposedly interim) government seeks to perpetuate itself by blocking the road to genuinely free elections through the repression, media manipulation, ...