Salah Ben Hammou
Researchers of authoritarian politics and civil-military relations have long examined military rule. However, our understanding of civilian participation in military regimes remains limited and requires greater analytical attention, argues Salah Ben Hammou. Amid last year’s coup resurgence, researchers must move to appreciate the subtle but salient differences among military dictatorships Read more
Martino Comelli
Christian democracy is the political culture that has been the driving force behind European integration. Yet, according to Martino Comelli, it has also facilitated the democratic backsliding of some countries of central and east Europe by providing an illiberal political toolbox of narratives and policies Read more
Frowin Rausis
The UK’s ‘New Plan for Immigration’ allows the government to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, reflecting the latest aspiration to externalise refugee protection. Frowin Rausis and Konstantin Kreibich show that the idea is not new. Different countries have toyed with it for years – and failed consistently Read more
Hannah Muzee
The British government's Rwanda-UK asylum deal exposes the detrimental effects of an absolute state sovereignty principle in the African Union. This principle, argues Hannah Muzee, is a major stumbling block to Africa’s desired unification objectives Read more
Hager Ali
The study of regime types, Hager Ali argues, is imbalanced. Theories and concepts of democracy have received attention for decades. But amid the resurgence of autocracies, scholars of authoritarianism still do not have the luxury of nuanced typologies to dissect the broad spectrum of non-democratic regimes Read more
Sandrine Maljean-Dubois
Biodiversity receives less attention than climate when it comes to the challenges and accomplishments of international cooperation. Sandrine Maljean-Dubois observes that preparations for the forthcoming COP15 on biodiversity have gone largely unnoticed. And yet, the ongoing collapse of the planet's biomass is as worrying as climate change Read more
Andreas Schedler
Since its invention, representative democracy has been haunted by fears of 'majoritarian tyranny.' Critics have often dismissed these fears as the anti-democratic ideology of self-protective elites. Yet, Andreas Schedler argues, rather than antidemocratic, they are antipopulist, as they recognise the plurality and fallibility of the people Read more
Leonardo Fiorespino
Leonardo Fiorespino finds Jean-Paul Gagnon’s proposed lexicon of democracy wanting in its base assumptions around knowledge and arbitrariness. Moreover, he wonders, can we really trust 'democracy's words'? Read more
