Last year, in November, I wrote about potential changes on the world map where e.g. referenda will unify or divide countries that we now see as permanent. In that text I failed to mention the East African Federation, which has…
Category: Democracy
Learning More From Our Similarities Than Our Differences
Capacity building, inspiration, and a feeling of being heard and understood: Throughout the last year, YWCA of Zambia and Danish Liberal Youth (DLY) have established a partnership with funding from the Danish Youth Council, and though much of the story…
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The Ten Most Liberal Countries in Latin America
Latin America is a paradox. It is the only region in which democratic governments and high poverty levels go together. Right behind North America and Western Europe, the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index claims Latin America to be the third…
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Freedom House Report 2019: Democracy in Retreat
Every year Freedom House carries out an assessment of political rights and civil liberties around the world. Its latest report suggests that a ’13-year decline’ can be observed in global freedom. See below for some of the most important developments.…
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Direct democratic opportunities for Europe
As a Swiss Citizens, the European Union may look like a big intransparent political machine that decides from Brussel what European Citizens have to do and how strong a vacuum cleaner has to be. The different European institutions, such as…
Science and Society
We like to think that in a liberal democracy, decisions should be based on well-informed arguments and debate results, not on someone’s popularity, status or gut feelings. To enforce this ideal, and for some practical reasons as well, people ‘invented’…
The Sliding Scale of Fascism and our Troubled Democracy
‘Hitler is finished, but the seeds spread by his disordered mind have firm roots in too many fanatical brains. It is easier to remove tyrants and destroy concentration camps than to kill the ideas that gave them birth and strength’.…
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One Step Forward And Five Backward: A New Indonesian Penal Code
Since the finalization of Indonesia’s new criminal bill, headlines like “Indonesia: Draft Criminal Code Disastrous for Rights”, “Indonesia protests over sex before marriage bill”, and “Indonesian couple fear pre-marital sex ban will make them criminals” have been the center of…
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Riots in Chile: “ I feel safe, as long as I don’t go to social events”
230 people injured and 26 dead- this is the tragic reality after more than one months of protests in Chile. Since the 14th of October thousands of young people have been demonstrating in Santiago de Chile, the capital of the…
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Brexit Update: The Election That Changed Everything
It was the Russian radical activist Emma Goldman who once said, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal” – she could not have been more wrong. Britain’s vote to leave the EU on 23rd June 2016 changed everything. One…
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