On the EDP wire, we post and discuss a range of issues that emanate from our research and that are important to us. Here you will find – in English or German – opinion pieces, book reviews, conference reports, and important announcements. Are you interested in becoming a guest contributor? Get in contact with us!
Most Recent EDP WIRE Posts
19 April 2024. In this essay Benjamin Schütze discusses Germany’s support for Israel’s onslaught in Gaza following the January 26, 2024 ICJ ruling, the emergence of several “red lines” in German discourse surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict and the role of …
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8 February 2024. Portrayed as a ‘green revolution’, European investments in renewables are extracting energy and profits, while bypassing local communities, strengthening authoritarian governments, increasing indebtedness and privatising economies – an essay by Benjamin Schütze and others. This EDP Wire …
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Bonn, 13 September 2023. The G20 summit showcased that democracies and autocracies need to cooperate with each other. “Standing up for democracy and cooperating with autocrats – is that possible?” asks Julia Leininger in the Current Column. This EDP Wire …
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The Russian Invasion of Ukraine revived the narrative of a global competition between democracies and autocracies, which had already gained importance in the wake of China’s rise to power. In March 2022, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had also spoken of …
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Federal President Frank Walter Steinmeier is on a official trip through Central Asia, where he is not only visiting Kazakhstan but also the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. Against the backdrop of far-reaching restrictions against civil society and human rights activists, this …
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The EU’s emerging response to foreign interference, as it is currently debated in the EU Parliament, contains striking similarities to arguments put forth by some governments around the world seeking to justify harsh restrictions on foreign funding and “foreign agents.” …
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Within just a few years, the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project has experienced a remarkable rise to both academic and political prominence. As Jonas Wolff shows in his paper that was just published open access with Contemporary Politics, this rise has been accompanied by a notable discursive shift: Having started as a project aimed at taking seriously the essential conceptual contestability of democracy, in recent years V-Dem has adopted an increasingly narrow and taken-for-granted focus on liberal democracy.
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Owing to China’s rise and the increasingly assertive behaviour of authoritarian states, the theme of a new “systemic competition” has become prominent in German foreign policy discourse. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has further boosted the idea that the world’s democracies must join forces in the face of menacing autocracies. Jonas Wolff, Pascal Abb, and Hanna Pfeifer analyze the pitfalls of such a dichotomy.
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In Reaktion auf das zunehmend selbstbewusste Auftreten autoritär verfasster Staaten hat sich auch im deutschen außenpolitischen Diskurs das Bild eines neuen „Systemwettbewerbs“ verfestigt. Die Vorstellung, dass sich die Demokratien dieser Welt im Angesicht bedrohlicher Autokratien zusammenschließen müssen, hat durch den russischen Angriffskrieg auf die Ukraine weiter Nahrung erhalten. Jonas Wolff, Pascal Abb und Hanna Pfeifer analysieren die Problematik einer solchen Dichotomie.
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Despite considerable efforts and financial investments in the MENA region by Germany and other European states, as well as high support for democracy in Arab states, political systems in the MENA region remain authoritarian. Benjamin Schuetze discusses the connection of these phenomena and suggests how meaningful German support in the MENA region could look like.
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