Tag - democracy

 
 

DEMOCRACY

COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2013
CCP's plan for pro-democracy voices: repression
A semisecret directive from the senior members of the Chinese Communist Party tells us how President Xi Jinping plans to manage pro-democracy voices in China: by shutting them down.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2013
The failure of Tahrir Square 2011
Two years ago, when I was in the Occupy movement, my comrades and I argued about revolution. Was revolution necessary? What is it? The split that destroyed our movement — as it did the Left during the 1960s — pitted revolutionaries against reformists. The most frustrating part of the debate, however, wasn't ideological. It was linguistic.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2013
Chinese democracy gets help
Despite the 'Great Firewall,' that requires anti-block software to cross, the Internet has already facilitated a certain level of democratic development in China.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 13, 2013
Hope amid Mideast turmoil
No one put the chances of reviving the Israel-Palestine peace process at more than minimal. Yet it has happened. Now is not the time for despair in the Middle East.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2013
Streets worldwide showing the failings of democracy
Historians examining our era will marvel at the proliferation of street protests defining the appeal of political community in old and new democracies.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2013
Returning to Egypt's preferable state of tyranny
Former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi knows neither Thomas Jefferson's advice that "great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities" nor the description of Martin Van Buren as a politician who "rowed to his object with muffled oars." Having won just 52 percent of the vote, Morsi pursued his objective — putting Egypt irrevocably on a path away from secular politics and social modernity — noisily and imprudently.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2013
What Egypt can learn from Iraq
While arguing over the merits of continuing U.S. aid to Egypt, commentators and analysts tend to agree on two main points. First, there is a general consensus on what President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood got wrong. Second, virtually all Western observers are stressing the need for an inclusive government in Egypt. In the first point, Egypt offers a lesson to Iraq and, in the second, Iraq offers a lesson to Egypt. Together, they point to the direction U.S. policy should take.
COMMENTARY / World
May 4, 2013
Planting courage in China
After decades of crackdowns on freedom of expression and basic human rights, people in China often lack courage — the very prerequisite for one's well-being.
COMMENTARY
Oct 22, 2009
Does Japan really want to stay competitive?
LONDON — The reported remarks to members of the foreign press in Tokyo on Oct. 14 by Shizuka Kamei, Japan's minister for financial issues, made me wonder whether he was living in the real world — where nations are interdependent and must compete to survive.

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree