Fiddling while Democracy Burns: Partisan Reactions to Weak Democracy in Latin America

Democracy is weakened when citizens and elites do not criticize actions or actors that undermine its principles. Yet this study documents a widespread pattern of partisan rationalization in how elites and the public evaluate democratic performance in Latin America. Survey data show that those whose party controls the presidency consistently express positive evaluations of the current state of democratic competition and institutions even when democracy in their country is weak. This pattern emerges in both mass survey data and among elected elites. These data have a worrying implication: if only the political opposition is willing to publicly acknowledge and sound the alarm when democracy is under attack, public pressure to protect democracy is likely to be dramatically reduced.

Authoritarian consolidation in Belarus: What role for the EU?

The aim of this article is to review the EU’s relations with Belarus over recent decades; to examine the patterns, opportunities and limitations of the EU’s policies vis-à-vis the authoritarian regime; and to evaluate the effectiveness of the EU’s responses to the brutal crackdown on civil society and political opposition following the flawed presidential elections in August 2020. It is argued that, despite its careful balancing act between principled approach and pragmatic engagement, the EU’s perception of the Belarusian regime has been overly optimistic and often influenced by the appeal of short-term geopolitical and economic gains. How should the EU deal with a consolidating and increasingly ruthless dictatorship at the heart of Europe? By way of conclusion, the article maps a number of ‘lessons learned’ and suggestions for future EU policy towards Belarus.

The Political Economy of Autocratization

In competitive authoritarian systems, aspiring autocrats must win elections and marginalize the political opposition. In Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko’s strategy for political hegemony heavily relied on socioeconomic co-optation, offering privileges to supporters and imposing sanctions on dissenters. In an economy dominated by the state, co-optation had a coercive effect on behavior. Without sizable areas of activity autonomous from the government, citizens could not defy or mitigate the cost of reprisals for openly supporting the political opposition. Through co-optation, Lukashenko weakened the opposition and built an authoritarian regime without resorting to extensive political violence, which could have undermined his claim of public legitimacy.

Features and prospects of resolving the political crisis in Venezuela

The purpose of the research is to identify opportunities and prospects for resolving the political crisis in Venezuela proceeding from the current situation in the country. The specifics of the crisis processes in the socio-economic and political spheres, as well as the causes contributing to their deepening are considered. The authors analyze the conflict between the ruling regime and the opposition and the factors impeding the implementation of the political and economic measures pursued by the government to remove the country from the crisis. The authors research the actions performed by the authorities of the Chavist regime in promoting dialogue and seeking compromise both with the political opposition and other immediate parties to the conflict, including secret negotiations, and with the help of mediators. Particular attention is paid to the scenarios of crisis resolution in Venezuela developed by the author of the paper, named "negative", "positive", and "neutral". Each of the scenarios traces the actions of the main opposing forces, their capabilities to resolve the conflict in one or another direction, the involvement of regional and major world states and the possibilities of their implementation to date.

Saving the Freedom of Information Act

Enacted in 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA) was designed to promote oversight of governmental activities, under the notion that most users would be journalists. Today, however, FOIA is largely used for purposes other than fostering democratic accountability. Instead, most requesters are either individuals seeking their own files, businesses using FOIA as part of commercial enterprises, or others with idiosyncratic purposes like political opposition research. In this sweeping, empirical study, Margaret Kwoka documents how agencies have responded to the large volume of non-oversight requesters by creating new processes, systems, and specialists, which in turn has had a deleterious impact on journalists and the media. To address this problem, Kwoka proposes a series of structural solutions aimed at shrinking FOIA to re-center its oversight purposes.

Military Politics

This chapter is concerned with military politics. It views the kingdoms as family states and weighs the domestic threats they face from conflicts pertaining to succession and intra-family divisions. The downsides of one of the structural aspects of these states—for example, the immense power of a few individuals to make weighty decisions—is critically examined. Attention is also devoted to the weakness of domestic political opposition, threats from abroad, and the methods GCC states have employed to repress them. In the last section, the focus shifts to civil-military relations as the methods Gulf monarchies have developed to keep their armies loyal are assessed such as the creation of privileged units and forces, the fostering of institutional rivalries between various elements, and the exclusion of certain sectarian communities from security sector employment. In short, this chapter is devoted to institutional analysis and explores how political and structural factors impede the Gulf armies’ effectiveness.

The impact of Political Parties Law no. 36 of 2015 on requlatinq political parties pluralism in Iraq

This study deals with the political parties’ pluralism in Iraq under the Parties Law No. 36 of 2015. The importance of the study lies in the fact that it looks at a topic that is at the heart of democracy and it is necessary for the success of any democratic processes. The study focuses on parties’ pluralism in Iraq since the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1921 until the end of the Baath Party regime in 2003, it also covers the period after 2003 and pays particular attention to the Parties Law No. 36 of 2015. It focuses on the legal framework of political parties after the adoption of the Political Parties Law and studies the impact of this law on parties’ pluralism in Iraq after its approval in 2015. The study concludes that Law No. 36 of 2015 is incapable of regulating parties’ pluralism for reasons including: the lack of commitment by the political parties to the provisions of the law, the inability of the Parties Affairs Department to take measures against parties that violate the law the absence of a strong political opposition that enhances the role of political parties, the association of most Iraqi parties with foreign agendas belonging to neighboring countries, and the fact that the majority of Iraqi parties express ethnic or sectarian orientations at the expense of national identity.

“Spoiling” in the Public Sphere: Political Opposition to Peace Negotiations and the Referendum Campaign in Colombia

Peace referendums can be exploited by political actors who may gain politically from opposing a peace process. This article explores how political opposition affects peace negotiations, particularly when a referendum is used to ratify an agreement, through the study of the Colombian peace negotiations between the government of President Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It finds that the exclusive character of the negotiations, coupled with their confidentiality, contributed to the political opposition’s capacity to influence public opinion against the peace process and to reject the peace agreement in the 2016 referendum. This qualitative study is based on the content analysis of reports, memoirs and interviews with key negotiation delegates, journalists and representatives of the referendum campaigns. It argues that political inclusion in peace negotiations can help prevent referendum spoiling, while public information and education during the negotiations can reduce the impact of disinformation and manipulation campaigns.