Politics Archives - Page 75 of 113

Hungary Is on the Edge of Dictatorship

Viktor Orbán’s coronavirus power grab

April 11, 2020 • by Kim Lane Scheppele

Orbán sought an expedited procedure to ram through this law when the parliament opened on Monday 24 March. The opposition united and denied Orbán the 4/5ths vote he needed to pass the law without the requisite parliamentary procedure. The coronavirus emergency law -- called by its critics the “Enabling Act” with ...

Democracy

The Expressive Antidote to the Trumpist Virus

How Erving Goffman helps us understand the hidden power of Biden, Sanders, and the Democratic governors

April 10, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

We can appreciate this by drawing upon the insights of the pioneering ethnographer of social interaction, Erving Goffman. There is irony in this. Goffman is not usually considered a political thinker, nor did he think of himself as such, but his creative examination of the details of social interaction, in my judgment, illuminates an ...

The Expressive Antidote to the Trumpist Virus

Democracy

#Orbanistan

Democracy in lockdown

April 7, 2020 • by Kriszta Kovács

A month later, a subsequent “Enabling Act” allowed the new German government led by Adolf Hitler to issue decrees independently of both Parliament and the President. In effect, it turned Hitler into a dictator. On 23 March 2020, the Hungarian Parliament debated a piece of legislation so similarly sweeping that some Hungarians informally now call it ...

Democracy

Unlimited Power for an Indefinite Period

Coronavirus becomes an opportunity for Viktor Orbán to extend his power

April 6, 2020 • by Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger

On March 30, 2020, the Hungarian Parliament passed the so-called “Enabling Act”. In the future, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will, therefore, be able to govern by decree without parliamentary approval. The law does not have a time limit. The Hungarian government claims that the massive spread of the novel coronavirus is the ...

Unlimited Power for an Indefinite Period

Democracy

Populists Love the Pandemic

Populist rulers are exploiting this crisis to the fullest

April 3, 2020 • by Sławomir Sierakowski

WARSAW – Threats to national security invariably limit domestic political disputes. Now that governments have assumed a leading role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the political opposition in countries under populist rule is quickly being marginalized. In theory, the authorities in these countries could use the crisis to invoke a ...

Democracy

Blaming Trump, Blaming Biden, Saving Ourselves

Can we save ourselves, from the plague that is COVID or the plague that is Trump?

April 3, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

This shouldn’t be a controversial point. Everyone from presumptive Democratic nominee former vice president Joe Biden to prominent columnists like Michelle Goldberg believes it. But it’s proved harder to do than it would seem. Even as Trump lies, promotes unproven cures, and continues to carry out petty personal vendettas at the expense of saving lives, ...

Blaming Trump, Blaming Biden, Saving Ourselves

Democracy

In Praise of Bureaucracy

How our patrimonial presidency endangers us all

April 2, 2020 • by Jeffrey Kopstein

But we’ve mostly disregarded one danger and it’s the one I believe is the most significant: Trump’s attack on the administrative state. The novel coronavirus bug revealed the American state, so impressive on the global stage with its ability to project unparalleled military force anywhere in the world, as shockingly unable ...

History

Our Man: the Life and Times of Diplomat Richard Holbrooke

An interview with biographer George Packer about war and humanity in the foreign service

March 31, 2020 • by George Packer and Charlotte Slivka

Charlotte Slivka [CS]: Thank you, George, for agreeing to do this interview, I really appreciate it and the whole community does especially in the face of the NBCC awards ceremony being postponed due to COVID-19. George Packer [GP]: That was a real downer but I’m happy to do it. Are you ...

Our Man: the Life and Times of Diplomat Richard Holbrooke

Democracy

There’s No “Trade-Off” Between Saving Lives and Saving the Economy

A humane society doesn’t trade some lives for others

March 28, 2020 • by Peter Dreier

Nonsense. In February, when he had a chance to take decisive action to get ahead of the virus, Trump told his advisors not to “do or say anything that would further spook the markets.” Trump’s weeks of downplaying the crisis, and his failure to prepare for the looming pandemic, deepened the problem. But having finally acknowledged the ...

There’s No “Trade-Off” Between Saving Lives and Saving the Economy

Democracy

Gray is Beautiful, Part 3

How do we balance the agendas of progressive and moderate voters?

March 27, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

What is to be done, in the face of the present crisis of democracy in America -- and far beyond -- in the midst of a pandemic? I think that we have a clear goal: all democrats -- small “d” -- have to work together against Trump and Trumpism. I agree ...

Democracy

Over 900 U.S. Political Scientists are Worried about Democratic Elections in November

Here’s Why

March 25, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac and William Kindred Winecoff

In the spirit of reflexive inquiry, we offer the following hypotheses: The current COVID pandemic is a global health crisis and an economic crisis of unprecedented proportions, and such crises always place stress on democracy. Political scientists understand that such crises can place extraordinary strain on even the most functional and legitimate ...

Over 900 U.S. Political Scientists are Worried about Democratic Elections in November

Democracy

Gray is Beautiful, Part 2

On the Social Condition and Fractured Society in Donald Trump’s America

March 24, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Gray Beauty I came to appreciate the beauty of the gray listening to a lecture by Adam Michnik at The New School for Social Research in 1996. In his lecture, likewise entitled “Gray is Beautiful,” Michnik declared: “Radical movements -- whether under black or red banners -- gladly use democracy in order ...