Li-Chia Lo revisits Rongxin Li’s essay on the Confucian concept of Minben (people-core/root) to offer more context to the concept and to differentiate it from the Chinese concept of Minzhu (people-master). Lo argues that both concepts are different, and we should not elide them
As the liberal norms promoted by the EU are fiercely contested, human rights groups in the South Caucasus face an insecure environment. Some propose alternatives to human rights promotion that challenge both the EU’s development paradigms and competing authoritarian agendas. Laura Luciani argues that we should take them seriously
What explains democratic skepticism in Central and Eastern Europe? Kiran Auerbach and Bilyana Petrova show that post-communist citizens’ low support for democracy is linked to dissatisfaction with the way democracy is practiced in their countries
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
‘Securitising’ an alleged external threat can be a convenient tool for political leaders to justify extreme measures and policies. Dionysios Stivas looks at the case of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s handling of asylum seekers in 2015
