The ideology motivating Charlie Hebdo attackers
The perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo massacre were not motivated by the religion of Islam, but by a political ideology based on a distorted perversion of the faith, analysts suggest. The strike...
View ArticleThe problem with populism
The recent electoral success of leftwing populist parties such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain has given a new impulse to the debate on populism in Europe, notes Cas Mudde, associate professor...
View ArticleAs Ukraine strategy fails, Russia adjusts security doctrine
Russia’s Security Council plans to adjust the nation’s security doctrine after learning the lessons of the political crises in the Middle East and Ukraine. “The United States and NATO are growing more...
View Article‘Sino-fantasy’? China’s draft security law sparks fears
The newly released draft of China’s national security law, which covers a range of topics including stressing the preservation of the Communist Party’s political regime, has stoked fears citizens’...
View ArticleIran’s Catch 22: regime struggles to balance ideology with realpolitik
Bellicose threats from the deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps provide telling confirmation of the regime’s “struggles to balance its anti-Western ideology with its regional ambitions...
View ArticleHistorical revisionism but no new wave of Russian nationalism
How did the dramatic events of 2014, including the annexation of Crimea and the onset of violent armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, transform the opinion of Russians regarding their ethnic identity,...
View ArticleChina’s regime more Maoist, workers more restive
Like Mao, Xi Jinping has made the preservation of the power of the Communist Party his overriding goal, notes a leading analyst. His motive appears partly to be to counter the growing demands of the...
View ArticleHow to counter Russia’s anti-democratic strategy
The European Union’s fearful anticipation of an adverse Russian reaction was a major factor in the failure of its Eastern Partnership Summit to encourage the membership aspirations of Eastern Europe’s...
View ArticleIran ‘leveraging chaos’ in the Middle East
The paradox of Iran is that of a society which aspires to be like South Korea – proud, prosperous and globally integrated – hindered by a hard-line revolutionary elite whose ideological rigidity and...
View ArticleIdeology fades in Cuba, exposing ‘crisis of values’
Cuba was never a deeply pious country in the cloth of some other Latin American nations. But the Catholic church and other denominations have come a long way from the 1960s and ’70s, when Fidel...
View ArticleCold War comparisons ‘play into Kremlin’s hands’?
Watching Russian TV is a disturbing business, notes Peter Pomerantsev, a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute, and the author of “Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the...
View ArticleLast address: Russian ideology after Crimea
It is ironic that the monument to the victims of Stalin’s terror will be erected in Moscow at the order of President Vladimir Putin, a man who once called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the...
View Article‘More dangerous than a new Cold War’? Russia’s nationalist ideology
Russia, humbled in the 1990s, offers fertile soil for nationalism — and the more Mr Putin is criticized by foreign leaders, the higher his domestic ratings, notes Robert Service, author of the...
View ArticleLatinobarómetro poll: democratic tide receding?
Latin America is a notoriously cyclical region, and the end of the long commodity boom has hit its countries hard, The Economist notes. This year’s Latinobarómetro poll, an annual survey of public...
View ArticleChina’s leaders ‘wound up’ by Magna Carta
Magna Carta — the Great Charter — is on tour this year, celebrating eight centuries since it was issued in 1215 by King John of England. It is regarded as one of the world’s most important documents...
View ArticleThe ‘end of an epoch’ for Putinism?
Western political thought on Russia over the past two decades presents a cavalcade of failures of analysis and prediction, notes analyst Lilia Shevtsova. The most pathetic was the failure to anticipate...
View Article‘Modernizing’ Muslims can defeat ISIS ideology, says Blair
Former PM Tony Blair today delivered a speech in Washington on Islamist extremism saying defeating so-called Islamic State, also known as Daesh, was “only a necessary beginning”. Delivering the...
View ArticleNo democratic experiment for Vietnam’s Market-Leninists
Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party opened an eight-day congress Thursday to name the country’s new set of leaders, who will determine the pace of critical economic reforms, the fight against corruption...
View ArticleChinese labor unrest tests Communist Party authority
An upsurge in industrial militancy in China is presenting a challenge for a Communist Party that bases much of its legitimacy on its ability to manage the economy, Simon Denyer writes for the...
View ArticleIran poll balances ‘external loosening’ with ‘internal stiffening’
Iranians headed to the polls Friday in elections made easy for conservatives after sweeping bans that left many pro-reform candidates off the ballots, adding further political pressures on Hassan...
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