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1. İmamoğlu Arrested: Türkiye Shifting to Autocracy

Author:
Aleksandra Maria Spancerska
Publication Date:
04-2025
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Demonstrations in Türkiye erupted in March when the Istanbul prosecutor’s office launched an investigation of that city’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main opponent of current head of state Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2028 presidential contest. The attack on the opposition candidate appears to be a turning point indicating Türkiye’s entry onto the path of authoritarianism, which will negatively affect the state of Turkish-EU relations.
Topic:
European Union, Domestic Politics, Autocracy, and Ekrem İmamoğlu
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

2. From polarisation to autocratisation: the role of information pollution in Brazil's democratic erosion

Author:
Anita Breuer
Publication Date:
01-2025
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
This study explores the complex relationship between information pollution, polarisation, and democracy in Brazil, a country that has recently experienced both democratic erosion and a pivotal democratic “U-turn”. Information pollution – the dissemination of false, misleading or harmful information – has become a global challenge, undermining societal peace and demo-cratic stability. In Brazil, these dynamics have been particularly pronounced, reflecting deep-seated socioeconomic inequalities and the impact of disinformation in an increasingly polarised political landscape. Grounded in a holistic analytical framework, this study moves beyond the narrow conception of countering disinformation as a challenge confined to the digital space. By incorporating socio-economic, media, legislative and political contexts into the analysis, it provides a comprehensive understanding of the factors that facilitate the emergence of information pollution. By doing so, the framework also enables the formulation of tailored policy recommendations that consider the distinct characteristics of Brazil’s context, while offering lessons relevant to other countries facing similar challenges. The analysis of the socioeconomic and social context highlights how in Brazil, persisting poverty and inequalities and the digital divide restrict access to diverse information sources, leaving marginalised groups disproportionately vulnerable to disinformation and hate speech. In this environment, hate speech targeting black women and members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (and others) (LGBTQ+) community has been a prominent driver of polarisation, which exacerbates the discrimination and marginalisation of individuals at the intersection of race, gender and sexual orientation. The characteristics of the Brazilian media landscape and information ecosystem further fuelled these dynamics. Highly concentrated media ownership and declining traditional journalism have undermined information diversity and opinion plurality. At the same time, digital platforms have become fertile ground for the spread of polarising narratives, driven by the rise of politainment and political messaging disguised as religious truth by influential evangelical leaders. Within Brazil’s regulatory and institutional context, outdated legislation on internet governance has left significant gaps in the oversight of digital platforms. The implementation of existing transparency legislation is deficient and fragmented. Political interference and the misuse of secrecy laws have further undermined transparency mechanisms. Against this backdrop, state transparency offerings provide an inadequate counterweight to disinformation circulating on digital platforms. The political context has exacerbated these challenges, with cultural and ideological divides exploited by political actors to erode trust in democratic institutions. Disinformation played a central role during the administration of Jair Bolsonaro who pursued a grievance-based mobilisation strategy, amplifying societal divisions by exploiting narratives around corruption, inequality and moral values. This approach triggered a process of affective polarisation, with religious rhetoric playing a significant role in framing political opponents as existential threats to traditional and conservative values. Across all these contexts, vulnerabilities, such as low digital literacy, concentrated media consumption, and societal cleavages, amplify the impact of information pollution. This study finds that information pollution has fuelled affective polarisation, fostering mistrust, hostility, and violence, which in turn has jeopardised key elements of democratic quality, including respect for counterarguments, electoral integrity, institutional checks and balances, and public accountability and lastly support for democracy itself. The findings of this study point to critical entry points for addressing information pollution. At the national level, strengthening Brazil’s transparency regime emerges as a key priority, particularly by making access to public information more inclusive and enhancing the autonomy of institutions tasked with upholding transparency. The modernisation of Brazil’s internet governance framework is equally important, requiring broad based publication consultations and robust mechanisms for platform accountability. To ensure impartiality, authorities tasked with overseeing internet governance must maintain sufficient independence from the executive branch and should feature a cross-sectoral, multi-stakeholder composition, incorporating voices from civil society, academia, technical experts, and the private sector. At the international level, enhancing cross-border collaboration is paramount. The Global Digital Compact adopted in 2024 offers an important foundation for promoting shared technological solutions and fostering multilateral cooperation. Regional organisations in Latin America, such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), also have a critical role to play in harmonising regulations and strengthening digital governance. Brazil’s recent experience illustrates the complex interplay between structural enablers, digital dynamics, and political strategies that drive polarisation and democratic erosion. At the same time, its ability to reverse autocratisation at the ballot box provides valuable lessons for curbing information pollution and fostering democratic resilience worldwide.
Topic:
Polarization, Autocracy, and Democratic Backsliding
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

3. Freedom Undone: The Assault on Liberal Values and Institutions in Hong Kong

Author:
Michael Davis and Junyan Jiang
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
A lot has been written about the 2019 protests in Hong Kong and the aggressive police crackdown offered in response. Much less has been written about the more severe assault on liberal values and institutions that followed. In his new book Professor Davis takes a forensic look at both the growing Beijing intervention in Hong Kong affairs from the handover forward and its culmination in the more severe crackdown that followed the 2019 protest, the 2020 passage of the National Security Law, and the 2021 Beijing imposition of a patriots-only electoral system. This talk will highlight the comprehensive impact of these developments on Hong Kong’s rule of law, its criminal justice system, and the many freedoms for which the vibrant city was long known—often previously ranking among the highest in the world. The diminution of basic freedoms has touched nearly all sectors of society, including education, the media, public broadcasting, civil society organizations, legal services, and so on. The city long known for a vibrant public debate, its vigorous media landscape, and some of the largest non-violent protests in the world has gone silent. The sheer comprehensiveness of this imposition raises questions not only for Hong Kong but for liberal democratic values globally, as autocratic regimes such as the PRC seek to advance their illiberal agenda.
Topic:
Protests, Institutions, Liberalism, and Autocracy
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Hong Kong

4. Starr Forum: China: The Rise and Fall of the EAST

Author:
Yasheng Huang and Will Knight
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
Speaker: Yasheng Huang, Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, and faculty director of the MIT-China Program at the Center for International Studies. Discussant: Will Knight, senior writer, Wired magazine, covers artificial intelligence and other emerging technology. He was previously a senior editor at MIT Technology Review, where he wrote about fundamental advances in AI and China’s AI boom.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Geopolitics, and Autocracy
Political Geography:
China and Asia

5. State Brutality, People’s Uprising, and Government Downfall: The Quota Reform Movement in Bangladesh

Author:
Md. Ziaul Karim and R. Y. Snigdha
Publication Date:
08-2024
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
It was the worst example of state brutality against unarmed students that happened in Bangladesh from July 15 to August 5, 2024. Over 300 people, including 32 children, were killed by the state-forces and ruling-party frontiers together (Ethirajan and Ritchie 2024; Mishra 2024). Additionally, more than 20,000 people injured and 11,000 were detained by Police. In order to suppress the student’s legitimate protest demanding “reform of the discriminatory quota systеm in the job”, the government has deployed all its state forces, equipped with deadly weapons, vehicles, helicopters, and applied water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets, sound grenades, and others. The party cadres attacked the protesters with guns arms. The government has suspended all social media and internet and declared a nationwide curfew. Furthermore, a shoot-on-sight policy has been declared for quitting the mob. Intelligence picked up students from their home creating block-raid in the area during the nighttime. The detective police abducted the student coordinators and tortured them. The situation bore resemblance to an invasion by occupying forces. As evidenced by numerous reports, Bangladeshi authorities have been committing serious human rights violations with impunity during the recent protests (Corea and Erum 2024). People from all social classes supported and involved in the movement. The demand for quota reform turns to a demand for justice. With the withdrawal of military support, the 15-year tenure of authoritarian rule by Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina had ended dramatically with her exile to India.
Topic:
Reform, Protests, Autocracy, and Interim Government
Political Geography:
Bangladesh and South Asia

6. Survival strategies in the Middle East: Foreign policy in the service of regime security. The cases of Egypt and UAE.

Author:
Johannes Späth, Carsten Minh Vo, and Cengiz Günay
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP)
Abstract:
This policy analysis examines foreign policy making in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It highlights how internal power dynamics and the interaction between formal institutions and informal networks shape foreign policy making in these two different types of Middle Eastern autocracies. The study identifies the politically relevant elite coalitions and their impact on decision-making. In both regimes, the circle at the top of the power pyramid is rather small and characterized by informal and family ties. A small and homogeneous elite promotes cohesion, but also limits the diversity of opinions. The royal elite in the UAE and the military and intelligence elite at the core of the al-Sisi regime in Egypt pursue their own economic interests in the service of regime security and stability. The paper identifies areas where the regional and foreign policies/interests of the two friendly countries and their elites diverge.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Autocracy, Regional Politics, and Regime Security
Political Geography:
Middle East, Egypt, and UAE

7. Understanding and Interrupting Authoritarian Collaboration

Author:
Christina Cottiero and Cassandra Emmons
Publication Date:
05-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)
Abstract:
For many decades, autocrats have been considered less cooperative than democrats in international politics. While researchers endeavored to learn how international democratic practices spread through political, economic, and social networks, little attention was paid to autocratic collaboration tendencies. However, growing bodies of evidence from human rights and democracy support to international security and international development demonstrate that authoritarian regimes are collaborating through formal organizations and informal channels to stabilize or entrench their rule, disrupt democratic civil society, and even extend the reach of repressive institutions beyond state boundaries. Autocrats face common threats, including: pro-democracy groups and dissenters at home; stigmatization and illegitimacy of their authoritarian governance tactics abroad; conditionalities on critically needed aid or loans that prioritize democratic governance structures and policies; and evolving and increased security threats. In response, authoritarian regimes are sharing information; working to legitimate (or de-stigmatize) repressive practices; supporting one another as they weather shocks and crises resulting from international integration (economic or political); and even lending resources for co-opting and managing critical constituencies. These and other tactics allow them to entrench authoritarian practices. To enable the democracy support community to effectively bolster democratic resilience in the face of growing authoritarianism, we must better understand these practices. This paper provides an overview of modern authoritarian collaboration, analyzing its purposes and methods. It goes on to consider implications for international order and suggests that democracy defenders challenge pernicious authoritarian collaboration, for instance by leveraging their own transnational networks to disrupt authoritarian collaboration on surveillance and repression; provide compelling counter-narratives and debunk disinformation through effective civic education campaigns; and international standard setting and rule enforcement that cuts off authoritarian actors from financial and other resources.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Resilience, Collaboration, Autocracy, and Democratic Backsliding
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. How Autocracy Prevailed in Tunisia

Author:
Sarah Yerkes and Sabina Henneberg
Publication Date:
11-2024
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Any future democratic renewal will require an entirely new movement that goes much further toward addressing the country’s deepest economic and social injustices. Not long ago, Tunisia was considered one of the biggest success stories in the Middle East and North Africa. Unlike neighboring Arab countries that experienced massive popular uprisings in 2011, Tunisia did not immediately revert to authoritarianism or descend into civil war. Instead, after its longtime dictator fled, an interim government held free and fair elections. The new, democratically elected regime adopted a liberal constitution and allowed civil society and independent media to flourish. By now, however, that success has decisively unraveled. Last month, for the first time in 14 years, Tunisia held a sham presidential election, marked by extensive manipulation and repression...
Topic:
Arab Spring, Protests, Autocracy, and Democratic Backsliding
Political Geography:
Middle East, North America, and Tunisia

9. Israel, Europe, and the Russia-Iran Axis

Author:
Emmanuel Navon
Publication Date:
06-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
With the world divided between a U.S.-led order of democracies on the one hand, and a cartel of aggressive autocracies – China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – on the other, that is challenging America and its allies, Europe has an important role to play in Israel’s war against Iran and its proxies.
Topic:
National Security, Autocracy, Proxy Groups, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

10. Western Balkans’ Horizon 2023 – New uncertainties in a changed geopolitical setting

Author:
Vedran Dzihic
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP)
Abstract:
“The age of uncertainty” has recently become the most used description for the time we live in. The aggression of Russia against Ukraine and the war approaching now its second year have changed the globe. Global uncertainties and huge geopolitical changes we witness are mirrored in European semiperipheral regions like the Western Balkans. The Western Balkans has been in a limbo for a while with no major progress towards the EU and democracy in general. Instead of steady democratization in the region we witnessed a gradual autocratization, most prominently in Serbia, and constant rise of crisis and tensions.
Topic:
European Union, Democracy, Geopolitics, Autocracy, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and Balkans