Building Global Democracy

Following a 1999 coup, Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf ruled by decree with the support of the military. He held a presidential referendum and got his party elected. He amended the constitution to legitimize his military rule. His involvement in the w

Counter-insurgency expert David Kilcullen believes that Pakistan could collapse "within months". But Mustafa Qadri reports that in the tribal areas, it is actually the Taliban, not al Qaeda, that is gaining traction

On 22 February 1854, James Buchanan, then the American ambassador in London but soon to be president of the US, celebrated George Washington's birthday with a dinner to which Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi were invited. At Mazzini's request other

All in all, the world of international digital activism is much more complex that it appears on first sight. As much as I'd like hope that we are already long past the point where most Western governments, agencies, and NGOs operate on the assumption that

URL: http://www.jamestown.org/uploads/media/GeorgiaCrisisTorbakov.pdf. Source: Jamestown Foundation. The August 2008 Russia-Georgia war has triggered some major shifts in regional geopolitics. The Caucasus crisis also directly affected the relationship

What do China's leaders mean when they say that the Chinese system is democratic and getting more so? To help answer this question, the influential John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution offers a translated set of key writings by Yu, a

Democratic states have periodically been threatened by demagogues -- political figures who fashion themselves as leaders of the people but in fact use the levers of government to establish autocratic rule. In this intriguing book, Signer explores the inte

As the global financial crisis emanating from the United States shuts down world markets, can globalization survive? Will the resurgent intrusion of the state-and thus politics-into the market lead to protectionism and collapse, as was the case in the ear

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview-with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya-that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this c

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview-with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya-that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this c

WASHINGTON, Apr 24 (IPS) - A massive overhaul of U.S. development assistance is needed, says a new report from an influential Washington think tank. While the "heightened rhetorical attention" given to democracy issues by George W. Bush's administration w

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 20 (IPS) - Ahead of the annual meetings of the world's biggest international financial institutions this weekend, calls are growing for the United Nations to take new initiatives on financing for development in poor countries. "There

After nearly a year of seemingly endless talks brokered by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Zimbabwe's long-ruling ZANU-PF party and the two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formed a coalition government in

In the seven and a half years since September 11, the United States has witnessed one of the greatest expansions of executive authority in its history, at the expense of the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. President Obama, as only the thir

The failure of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes spurred a global surge in democratization in the 1980s. However, efforts at democratization have been challenged by path-dependent institutional and political variables that can inhibit the growth of w

There are many patterns of internal conflict identified in the Third World-"economically vulnerable," "politically vulnerable,""heterogeneous-parochial," and "egalitarian-distributive"-and the sheer variety of these indicates that internal conflict is a c

What should the relationship between citizens and the law in a liberal democracy look like? The idea that citizens should be associated with the laws that govern them is a cornerstone of democratic theory. Yet the specific nature of this relationship has

The problems and prospects of the expansion of democracy at international, transnational and/or global levels were the focus of numerous fascinating and penetrating analyses by the participants in the 2008 Millennium Conference. However, there were also a

International Relations (IR) needs democratising. Currently, IR theorising remains under the hegemony of a singular worldview (`warre of all against all') with a singular logic (`conversion or discipline') for all actors and activities. This top-down, sta

The end of the cold war brought with it arguments in favour of international institutional and legal mechanisms that would protect democracy worldwide. These arguments have by no means been confined to the academic departments of international law or poli