Email
Arab Spring, Chinese Winter
Just after the streets of Tunisia and Egypt erupted, China saw a series of “Jasmine” protests—until the government stopped them cold. Is the Chinese public less satisfied—and more combustible—than it appears?
Just after the streets of Tunisia and Egypt erupted, China saw a series of “Jasmine” protests—until the government stopped them cold. Is the Chinese public less satisfied—and more combustible—than it appears?
As dictatorships crumble across the Middle East, how do we promote American values while protecting American interests?
Can democracy take root in a predominantly Islamic part of the world? How Atlantic writers thought about the question throughout the 20th century.
A renowned scholar of Near Eastern studies, took on the question of Islam's suitability for democratic rule
The global triumph of democracy was to be the glorious climax of the American Century. But democracy may not be the system that will best serve the world—or even the one that will prevail in places that now consider themselves bastions of freedom.
At a time when countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere were demanding the right to self-determination, Raymond D. Gastil assessed the extent to which civil liberties within a democracy require protection within a democracy
In the midst of World War II, the wife of China's Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, decried the exploitation of China by the West and delineated a vision for a more democratic future
This Chinese author proudly declared "we have transformed our immense country from an empire of four thousand years' standing into a modern democracy" asking that the United States lend its support to the fledgling government through official recognition
A generation after Fela Kuti made democratic reform central to a new musical genre, his son Seun is carrying on the tradition. |
Reuters
An opaque and unelected bureaucracy is guiding the country's future away from its revolutionary ideals.
Reuters
As democratic movements spread in the Middle East, governments are cracking down, and that means big business for the companies who help them do it.
Reuters
As the country cracks down on peaceful protesters, a company called Qorvis is spinning Washington on their behalf.
SEIBS.edu
Meet Eric X. Li, a believer in the Chinese model of governance who is pitching it to Western audiences.
Reuters
Twitter gives us a new version of 'the first rough draft of history.' But tweets are fragile things.
Basic Books
A few questions for author Rebecca MacKinnon about her new book, Consent of the Networked
Lauren E. Bohn
A cross-section of this large and diverse country discuss the year since Hosni Mubarak's departure and what they see in the future.
Reuters
Can the informal leader of Bahrain's revolution keep the movement going despite a government that cracks down with impunity and an indifferent world?
Reuters
A look back at Graeme Wood's dispatches from Tahrir
Sebastian Strangio
Scenes from a country in a slow-motion and still uncertain revolution
Reuters
What's next for the country and its beleaguered revolution?
Reuters
Repressive political cultures and other factors make martyrdom central to the movements there, but they might not be so unique.
Jillian C. York
If you've watched a TV report or read a news article on the Arab Spring, odds are you've encountered Nasser Weddady's work without even knowing it.
Reuters
Step one: get its observers out of Syria.
AP
Why a wave of democratization will likely turn most or all of the region within a generation
Reuters
Protestors took to the Arab League headquarters after observers fail to halt Assad's ongoing crackdown against demonstrators.
Al Jazeera English
Allowing the violence to go on could have worse consequences than an intervention, though only one that meets certain conditions.
Reuters
The country's creeping authoritarianism offers a warning for the Arab Spring and even for the U.S..
Reuters
The region has its share of dictatorships and protesters, but there's something ironic about the too-eager comparisons to the Middle East.
Rudaw.net
What Syria's largest minority means for the uprising, for the opposition leaders, and the country's future
David H. Freedman on smartphone apps and the perfected self, Mark Bowden on being in the dumb kids' class, James Parker on Glenn Beck, Isaac Chotiner on P. G. Wodehouse, and more
Protests in Tahrir Square Echo Last Year's Uprising
Here Are Pictures of a Probable Mass Grave in Syria
American Apparel Could Lose Its One Redeeming Quality
Chicago's Downtown Goes All 1980s
The City as Lifesize Monopoly Board
Rethinking the Economics of Traffic Congestion
Afghanistan (1973) 
New York City Ballet: A Crystal Palace 
Synthetic Biology