by M. E. | Dec 9, 2020 | Williams College
In February 2019, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika declared his intention to run for a fifth term. This message was released through state media as Bouteflika could no longer make public speeches, after suffering a stroke in 2013. Instead, he had been...
by Joseph Ozmer | Oct 14, 2020 | University of Georgia
October marks the one-year anniversary of Iraq’s anti-government protests. These protests have shaken Iraq while it still recovers from the devastating war with ISIS. Iraqis are furious with the Iranian interference, ineffectual governance, violent militia impunity,...
by Mohammad Almishlawi | May 1, 2020 | Bilkent University
For a long time, Lebanon has been synonymous for civil conflicts and sectarian clientelism; Lebanese citizens never had a high level of solidarity and sympathy across their various sects and regions. The consociational democratic system in the country has brought huge...
by Kaan Aksoy | Apr 22, 2020 | Bilkent University
Aspiring autocrats do not necessarily need to seek out ways to legitimise their attacks on the institutions of democracy, such as free media, checks and balances, and civil society. Sometimes, such legitimacy is granted to them by the forces beyond the control of...
by Steven Rubin | Apr 6, 2020 | Boston University
In the Middle East, no country is more democratic than the State of Israel, as evidenced by the Democracy Index of 2019 [1]. However, the strain put on Israel’s political system in the past year has...
