Ethiopian Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed received the 100th Noble Peace Price for his efforts to achieve peace with Eritrea. Indeed, he should be recognized for this achievement. This peace deal opens doors to sustain peace in a region which is pinpointed as one of the most conflict-prone regions of the world. He stepped into re-building strained relationships between Eritrea and Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia, as well as Eritrea and Sudan. Without diminishing these regional achievements, this post aims to highlight his work towards establishing peace in Ethiopia by introducing the “Medemer” concept – at a time when Ethiopia was on the verge of a civil war.

read more »

This EDP Wire contribution summarizes the V-Dem Working Paper “Regime Legitimation Strategies (RLS), 1900 to 2018” that introduces new expert-coded measures of regime legitimation strategies for 179 countries in the world from 1900 up until 2018. The authors of the paper are EDP network member Johannes Gerschewski and his colleagues Marcus Tannenberg (University of Gothenburg), Michael Bernhard (University of Florida), Anna Lührmann (University of Gothenburg), and Christian von Soest (GIGA Institute). The paper is available as open access. The summary was prepared and edited by Nora Berger-Kern.

read more »

This post details the major changes of the 2019 Organizations of Civil Society Proclamation No. 1113/2019 proclamation which aims to open space for CSOs to contribute to the country’s democracy and human right promotion. While the analysis ”Negotiating international civil society support: the case of Ethiopia’s 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation” sheds light on the process of international negotiations of the old proclamation and outlines the consequences of the proclamation for international civil society support in Ethiopia, the current post presents the differences of the two laws. It concludes by looking forward to the upcoming 2020 general election of Ethiopia.

read more »

This EDP Wire was developed as a contribution to the EDP co-sponsored event on “Concepts of Peace and Peacebuilding: Europe and Beyond” on March 7 in Erfurt in lieu of a presentation by Tobias Heider, Advisor on Security and Defence for The Greens in the European Parliament. Heider, who is working on the practical dimension of EU policies since 2004, argues that on the operational level, the EU has not yet fully developed a peace or peacebuilding policy. Nora Berger-Kern, web editor for the EDP network at PRIF, helped with the further development and writing of this contribution.

read more »

This EDP Wire contribution briefly summarizes the PRIF Report “Preventing Civic Space Restrictions. An Exploratory Study of Successful Resistance Against NGO Laws” by Jana Baldus, Nora Berger-Kern, Fabian Hetz, Annika Elena Poppe, and Jonas Wolff. The report analyzes four cases (Azerbaijan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan and Zambia) in which governmental attempts to adopt restrictive NGO laws have been frustrated, aborted or, at least, significantly mitigated as a consequence of domestic and/or international resistance. It then identifies conditions and dynamics that help understand successful resistance against legal civic space restrictions.

read more »

This EDP Wire contribution briefly summarizes the seventh and last article “Negotiating democracy with authoritarian regimes. EU democracy promotion in North Africa” of the recent Democratization special issue “The negotiation of democracy promotion. Issues, parameters and consequences“, edited by EDP network members Annika E. Poppe, Julia Leininger and Jonas Wolff. With the help of the generous support of the Leibniz Association, the entire special issue “The negotiation of democracy promotion: Issues, parameters and consequences” is available online as open access.

read more »

This EDP Wire contribution briefly summarizes the article “Democracy promotion in EU enlargement negotiations: more interaction, less hierarchy” of the recent Democratization special issue “The negotiation of democracy promotion. Issues, parameters and consequences“, edited by EDP network members Annika E. Poppe, Julia Leininger and Jonas Wolff. With the help of the generous support of the Leibniz Association, the entire special issue “The negotiation of democracy promotion: Issues, parameters and consequences” is available online as open access.

read more »

This EDP Wire contribution briefly summarizes the fifth article „Negotiating international civil society support: the case of Ethiopia’s 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation” of the recent Democratization special issue “The negotiation of democracy promotion. Issues, parameters and consequences“, edited by EDP network members Annika E. Poppe, Julia Leininger and Jonas Wolff.

read more »

This EDP Wire contribution briefly summarizes Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann’s article “Negotiating normative premises in democracy promotion: Venezuela and the Inter-American Democratic Charter” of the recent Democratization special issue “The negotiation of democracy promotion. Issues, parameters and consequences“, edited by EDP network members Annika E. Poppe, Julia Leininger and Jonas Wolff. With the help of the generous support of the Leibniz Association, the entire special issue “The negotiation of democracy promotion: Issues, parameters and consequences” is available online as open access.

read more »

The late-2000s economic and financial crisis is widely credited with facilitating the success of new political parties in Europe. Hugo Marcos-Marne, Carolina Plaza-Colodro and Tina Freyburg argue that voting for new parties cannot be understood as a mere economic response. Rather, populist attitudes can make citizens perceive of new parties as a real alternative to traditional forces in times when economic crisis meets a deepening crisis of democratic representation.

read more »