Larry Diamond writes for online magazine The Cipher Brief how the extended period of democracy has not brought a dramatic deepening of democratic norms in Latin America countries.
The Program on Poverty and Governance (PovGov) at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law received a $4.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs to launch a research project to examine the nature of police corruption in Mexico and make recommendations for reforming that country’s law enforcement institutions.
This new phase of research is expanding on the four-year project that PovGov has led to evaluate the use of police lethal force in Rio de Janeiro’s most dangerous slums. Over the course of three years, the new project will partner with law enforcement in Mexico to professionalize and improve its capacity, while strengthening the rule of law and enhancing transparency in a country rocked by insecurity and violence.
The project is led by PovGov Director and Principal Investigator Beatriz Magaloni together with co-investigator Alberto Diaz-Cayeros. Both have conducted cutting-edge research on crime and violence in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where they launched the International Crime and Violence Lab.
To read more about the new Mexico project, please click here.
In a video by PBS NewsHour, three Ukrainian alumni of the CDDRL's Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program provide comments on the struggle for political change and stability in their country two years after the Maidan protests drove President Yanukovych out of Ukraine. Alumni members Sergii Leshchenko, Mustafa Nayyem, and Svitlana Zalishchuk currently serve as Members of Parliament in Ukraine. Nayyem: "It was very easy to be heroes on the Maidan. It is much more difficult to be heroes in the Parliament."
For more information and to purchase the book, please click here.
Over the past decade, illiberal powers have become emboldened and gained influence within the global arena. Leading authoritarian countries—including China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela—have developed new tools and strategies to contain the spread of democracy and challenge the liberal international political order.
Meanwhile, the advanced democracies of Europe and the United States have retreated and failed to respond to the threat posed by the authoritarians. As undemocratic regimes become more assertive, they are working together to repress civil society while tightening their grip on cyberspace and expanding their reach in international media. These political changes have fostered the emergence of new counternorms—such as the authoritarian subversion of credible election monitoring—that threaten to further erode the global standing of liberal democracy.
In Authoritarianism Goes Global, a distinguished group of contributors present fresh insights on the complicated issues surrounding the authoritarian resurgence and the implications of these systemic shifts for the international order. This collection of essays is critical for advancing our understanding of the emerging challenges to democratic development.
