Mar 30, 2012

Russia's civil society is key

by Andrey Borodaevskiy

The future of democracy in Russia will depend on the correct relationship between “people” and “power” — the two major elements constituting any society. In a normal democratic society, political parties serve as focal points of public opinion, crystallizing different approaches and policies in ...

Mar 19, 2012

Authoritarian democracy looking less Asian

by Sergei A. Karaganov

The world is being shaken by tectonic changes almost too numerous to count. The economic crisis is accelerating the degradation of international governance and supranational institutions amid a shift of economic and political power to Asia. Now, less than a quarter-century after Francis Fukuyama ...

Feb 20, 2012

How the Arab Spring was hijacked

by Brahma Chellaney

A year after the Arab Spring came to symbolize the ascent of people’s power, hope has given way to a bleak sequel. The democratic awakening has fallen prey to murky geopolitics that has cleaved the Arab Spring into two parts, with the oil monarchies ...

| Feb 14, 2012

Put children before politics

Almost a year after the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant following the March 11, earthquake and tsunami, one serious question remains: to what extent have residents in the vicinity of the plant been exposed to radiation? As ...

Jan 25, 2012

China's limits as a role model

by Frank Ching

Forty years ago, the arch-conservative American President Richard M. Nixon shocked his country and the world by visiting communist China, a country that the United States did not recognize and whose soldiers had fought American soldiers in the Korean war. Last week, that historic ...

Jan 20, 2012

Finessing the dramatic opening to Myanmar

by Tom Plate

Perhaps a democratic system of government will not prove the final answer for Myanmar. Just take a look at the Philippines if you’re crazy about another possible “for sale” democracy in Asia. But considering what the good people of what used to be called ...

Dec 16, 2010

North Korea has its reasons

In his Dec. 5 letter, “Why stick up for North Korea,” James Hughes says I “take up the North Korean mantle as if to disguise the brutality of the North Korean regime.” But in my Dec. 1 article (“The N. Korean conundrum“), I make ...

Dec 5, 2010

Why stick up for North Korea?

Why folks wish to apologize for the actions of North Korea is bewildering. Gregory Clark again, in his Dec. 1 article “The N. Korean conundrum,” takes up the North Korean mantle as if to disguise the true brutality of this regime. Outside intervention by ...