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…
Continue reading The Ten Most Liberal Countries in Latin America
Goodbye London! I can’t believe that my time in London has come to an end. To try to summarise the past five months in just one blog post seems like an impossible task, but I’ll try my best. My time…
Today, January 31st, 2020, is Brexit Day. As I am sitting here, behind my desk (which doubles as the kitchen table) in my flat in Whitechapel, East London, I cannot help but feel a bit bewildered: history is taking place…
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.…
Continue reading Freedom House Report 2019: Democracy in Retreat
It feels like ages since my last blog post! It’s my last month in London (how crazy is that?!), and a lot of things are happening. At the moment I’m in Belfast with my colleagues from Liberal International. We have…
Few can deny that homelessness has become a major societal problem across the U.S., and better solutions are needed to address the issue. While there are a myriad of situations that can ultimately lead to homelessness, rising rent prices are…
Continue reading How Housing-First Strategies Aid In Preventing Homelessness
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…
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’…
‘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’.…
Continue reading The Sliding Scale of Fascism and our Troubled Democracy
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…
Continue reading One Step Forward And Five Backward: A New Indonesian Penal Code
