Interview – Olukayode Bakare
Olukayode Bakare analyzes coups, global rivalries, Nigeria-EU ties, and Africa’s democratic decline amid insecurity and shifting geopolitical dynamics.
democracy
The Voter Experience
Technology and innovation have transformed every part of society, including our electoral experiences. Campaigns are spending and doing more than at any other time in history. Ever-growing war chests fuel billions of voter contacts every cycle. Campaigns now have better ways of scaling outreach methods and offer volunteers and donors more efficient ways to contribute time and money. Campaign staff have adapted to vast changes in media and social media landscapes, and use data analytics to forecast voter turnout and behavior.
Yet despite these unprecedented investments in mobilizing voters, overall trust in electoral health, democratic institutions, voter satisfaction, and electoral engagement has significantly declined. What might we be missing?…
Opinion – The Return of Culture in Democracies
The return of the culture to the centre stage needs to be seen as constitutive of democracies and not an aberration.
Review – Contesting Pluralism
Fisher-Onar compellingly reframes Turkish politics as ‘pluralizers’ vs. ‘anti-pluralists’, though critics warn of reasserting Western hegemonies in pluralist terms.
Reimagining Democracy
Imagine that all of us—all of society—have landed on some alien planet and need to form a government: clean slate. We do not have any legacy systems from the United States or any other country. We do not have any special or unique interests to perturb our thinking. How would we govern ourselves? It is unlikely that we would use the systems we have today. Modern representative democracy was the best form of government that eighteenth-century technology could invent. The twenty-first century is very different: scientifically, technically, and philosophically. For example, eighteenth-century democracy was designed under the assumption that travel and communications were both hard…
The End of US Democracy and the Implications for International Relations
Trump’s illiberalism will leave the world with three dominant military powers that are all non-democratic: China, Russia and the US.
Interview – Gerardo L. Munck
Gerardo Munck explores global political history, democracy-capitalism tensions, and Latin America’s role in shaping political thought beyond Eurocentric theories.
AI and Civil Service Purges
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s chaotic approach to reform is upending government operations. Critical functions have been halted, tens of thousands of federal staffers are being encouraged to resign, and congressional mandates are being disregarded. The next phase: The Department of Government Efficiency reportedly wants to use AI to cut costs. According to The Washington Post, Musk’s group has started to run sensitive data from government systems through AI programs to analyze spending and determine what could be pruned. This may lead to the elimination of human jobs in favor of automation. As one government official who has been tracking Musk’s DOGE team told the…
Exploring the World of the International Election Observer
Election observation is challenging work, but remains an important and relatively accessible opening into international service.
Self-Deterrence, Narrative Control, and Nuclear Deterrence: The Case of Israel
The theory of self-deterrence has emerged as a pivotal factor in shaping the behavior of nuclear-armed states. At the heart of this concept lies the intricate interplay between reputational concerns, precedents of nuclear use, and the credibility of nuclear deterrence. When leaders are self-deterred from employing nuclear weapons due to the fear of tarnishing their […]
Self-Deterrence, Narrative Control, and Nuclear Deterrence: The Case of Israel was originally published on Global Security Review.