Democracy Resource Center Blog

End of Communism Cheered But Now With More Reservations : Two Decades After the Wall's Fall

2009-11-03T03:58:00.000-08:00

A new 14-nation survey by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, conducted Aug. 27 through Sept. 24 among 14,760 adults, includes nations in Eastern and Western Europe, as well as the United States. It reexamines many of the key issues -- including reactions to democracy and free markets, measures of life satisfaction, views of ethnic minorities and opinions of Russia, the EU and NATO -- first explored in a 1991 survey conducted by the Times Mirror Center, the predecessor of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.>

Press Freedom Index 2009 Released

2009-10-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

Obama effect in US, while Europe continues to recede Israel in free fall, Iran at gates of infernal trio
“Press freedom must be defended everywhere in the world with the same energy and the same insistence,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said today as his organisation issued its eighth annual world press freedom index.
“It is disturbing to see European democracies such as France, Italy and Slovakia fall steadily in the rankings year after year,” Julliard said. “Europe should be setting an example as regards civil liberties. How can you condemn human rights violations abroad if you do not behave irreproachably at home? The Obama effect, which has enabled the United States to recover 16 places in the index, is not enough to reassure us.”
Reporters Without Borders compiles the index every year on the basis of questionnaires that are completed by hundreds of journalists and media experts around the world. This year’s index reflects press freedom violations that took place between 1 September 2008 and 31 August 2009
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In Middle East, Bloggers Face Attack

2009-10-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

http://cpj.org/reports/2009/10/middle-east-bloggers-the-street-leads-online.php
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
In the Middle East and North Africa, where political change occurs slowly, blogging has becomes a serious medium for social and political commentary as well as a target of government suppression

Media Sustainability Index (MSI)

2009-10-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.irex.org/msi/index.asp. Source: IREX.

This report provides in-depth analyses of the conditions for independent media in 76 countries across Africa, Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East. Since the Eurasian MSI was first conceived in 2000, in cooperation with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the MSI has evolved into an important benchmark study to assess how media systems change over time and across borders. Since 2006, IREX has also produced an MSI for the Middle East and North Africa, with support from USAID, the US Department of State’s Middle East Policy Initiative, and UNESCO. In 2007 IREX launched the Africa MSI with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency, the World Bank Institute, and USAID.

Angus Reid Global Monitor

2009-10-09T07:23:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.angus-reid.com/

The Angus Reid Global Monitor is a project of Angus Reid Strategies, a worldwide leader in the use of marketing research, Internet platforms, rich media technology and virtual reality. While their research and data specialists cover a wide range of industries, their polling work on political, social, and economic policy may be of particular interest to Endowment staff, fellows, and interns.

Users can track worldwide public opinion on current issues such as Afghanistan, Africa, economy and globalization, Iran, Latin America, North Korea, terrorism, and Vladimir Putin. In an effort to advance research on democracy around the world, the Global Monitor provides an online dossier called Election Tracker that monitors democratic conditions around the world, by reviewing background information, assessing the latest campaign news and events, describing trends in voting intention, and reporting on the outcome of a particular ballot.

A simple and advanced search is provided to help locate data by issue, analysis, elections, and polls.

The Quick 'n Easy Guide to Online Advocacy

2009-09-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

URL: http://onlineadvocacy.tacticaltech.org/

Developed by Tactical Tech, this guide aims to expose advocates to online services that are quick to use and easy to understand. The guide provides descriptions of online services including social networking sites, image and video hosting services, and services that enhance an organizations web presence. The guide also offers advice on where and when to use these services. Case studies, security concerns as well as the advantages and disadvantages of various web services are discussed, with the aim of improving advocates ability to conduct online advocacy campaigns.

Global Forum on Freedom of Expression

2009-08-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.irex.org/resources/annual/2008highlights.pdf. Source: Global Forum on Freedom of Expression. This June, the Global Forum on Freedom of Expression gathered the world’s most prominent global free expression networks and 500 individuals in Oslo, Norway for a week of seminars, workshops, networking events and lectures. The brief summary report now released gives highlights from the many events during the week of the Global Forum and looks back on some of the memorable discussions between the leading thinkers and activists of the free expression community.

Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics: CAPWIP

2009-08-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.capwip.org/. Source: Internet Resources Newsletter. Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics: CAPWIP is a non-partisan, non-profit and non-governmental regional organization (NGO) dedicated to promoting equal participation of women in politics and decision-making.

Arab human development report 2009 - Challenges to human security in the Arab Countries

2009-07-22T12:34:00.001-07:00

URL: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MWAI-7U78JZ?OpenDocument

This is the fifth volume in the series of Arab Human Development Reports sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and independently authored by intellectuals and scholars from Arab countries.

Like its predecessors, this Report provides eminent Arab thinkers a platform from which to articulate a comprehensive analysis of their own contemporary milieu. It is not a conventional report produced by the United Nations. Rather, it is an independent publication that gives a voice to a representative group of Arab intellectuals whose sober and self-critical appraisals might not otherwise be heard in the particular circumstances of the region. The views of the authors are supplemented by an opinion poll conducted in four Arab countries—Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco and the Occupied Palestinian Territory—that represent a range of political and cultural contexts for the Report's analyses. A special Youth Forum convened for the Report also provides insights from young Arabs.

Human Development Report 2009 : Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development

2009-07-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

URL: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2009/. Source: UNDP.

The report investigates migration in the context of demographic changes and trends in both growth and inequality. It will also present more detailed and nuanced individual, family and village experiences, and explore less visible movements typically pursued by disadvantaged groups such as short term and seasonal migration.

Zimbabwe: The Power Sharing Agreement and Implications for U.S. Policy

2009-07-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

URL: http://opencrs.com/document/RL34509/. Source: Congressional Research Service.

After almost a year of uncertainty following Zimbabwe's March 2008 elections, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn as Prime Minister of a new coalition government on February 11, 2009. The new governments establishment comes five months after a power-sharing agreement was signed in an effort to resolve the political standoff resulting from the flawed 2008 elections. For the first time since independence, the ruling party has lost its majority in the National Assembly...

International Criminal Court Launches Online Library

2009-07-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Legal+Texts+and+Tools/. Source: International Criminal Court (ICC).

In late April, the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched the new version of “Legal Tools,” an online library on international criminal law and justice, which empowers victims and others who seek a judicial response to atrocities by providing a central vehicle to obtain information on international criminal law. Legal Tools provide a knowledge-transfer platform for international criminal and human rights laws made freely available to the general public through the ICC Web site. The online library contains more than 40,000 documents, including decisions and indictments from all international criminal tribunals, ICC preparatory works and case documents, treaties, information about national legal systems, and relevant decisions from national courts.

Sword and Shield: Self-Regulation and International Media

2009-07-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

URL: http://cima.ned.org/896/self-regulation-report.html. Source: Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA).

This report examines the ways in which media around the world have attempted to regulate themselves. Written by Bill Ristow, a veteran journalist and international journalism trainer, this report discusses the use of press councils and ombudsmen. Many efforts to establish these entities espouse similar high standards, however, they differ in approach, scope, effectiveness, and, most significantly, independence.

Download the report.

Journalists in Exile

2009-06-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.rsf.org/Reporters-Without-Borders,33456.html Source: Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

According to the report, at least three journalists a month flee their home countries to escape threats of violence, prison or harassment, and only one in seven ever returns home. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) marked World Refugee Day by publishing a guide for exiled journalists - providing them with information about the main procedures and potential obstacles in seeking asylum. The guide covers the steps to be taken with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and also asylum procedures within the European Union, the United States and Canada: three of the top destinations for exiled journalists. Also visit a special section of RSF's website dedicated to exiled journalists here.

Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians

2009-06-23T10:44:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.underminingdemocracy.org

Freedom House, in collaboration with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, has released a major report investigating how dictatorships control information and why they get away with it.

Culminating from a two-year study, the report, "Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians", chronicles how five of the globe's most influential authoritarian states - China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Pakistan - are actively subverting democratic movements, strictly censoring the information their citizens can access and intimidating journalists and civil society.

Berkman Center For Internet & Democracy Project Releases Study Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere

2009-06-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

URL: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/Mapping_the_Arabic_Blogosphere.pdf. Source: Berkman Center for Internet & Democracy

From the Summary:
“Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere” uses a unique methodology that blends link analysis, term frequency analysis, and human coding of individual blogs to investigate the online discussions taking place across the Middle East and North Africa. Internet & Democracy project director Bruce Etling and his team, with Morningside Analytics founder and Berkman affiliate John Kelly, and co-authors Robert Faris and John Palfrey, identified a base network of approximately 35,000 active blogs (about half as many as found in their previous study of the Persian blogosphere), created a network map of the 6,000 most connected blogs, and with a group of Arabic speakers hand coded 4,000 blogs. The goal for the study was to produce a baseline assessment of the networked public sphere in the Arab Middle East, and its relationship to a range of emergent issues, including politics, media, religion, culture, and international affairs. Whereas the previous study of the Persian blogosphere revealed a network organized primarily around political ideologies and topical issues, such as reformist and conservative politics, religion, and poetry, the Arabic blogosphere is organized primarily around countries. Moreover, personal life and local issues are the most important topics of discussion: most bloggers write mainly personal, diary-style observations, but when writing about politics, bloggers tend to focus on issues within their own country. Bloggers link to Web 2.0 sites like YouTube and Wikipedia (English and Arabic versions) more than other sources of information and news available on the Internet. The overall picture is one of country-based groupings of blogs focused on domestic issues.

Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer 2009

2009-06-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2009/gcb2009

Transparency International’s 2009 Global Corruption Barometer reveals a growing distrust of business, the daily struggle of the world’s poor with petty bribery and public unconvinced of governments’ anti-corruption efforts. A global public opinion survey, the 2009 Barometer reflects the views of more than 73,000 people from 69 countries and territories around the world.

GRANTnet

2009-06-03T13:45:00.001-07:00

URL: http://www.grantnet.com/

"GRANTnet, a straightforward FREE-to-use service from GRANTfinder, can help small businesses, charitable and community groups like yours to find suitable funding.

Presented in the format of an online, step-by-step questionnaire, GRANTnet enables you to identify and select only funding schemes and awards that are appropriate for your project. The information on GRANTnet comprises in excess of 5,000 funding schemes that are available in the UK from European and national sources, directed at the public, private, charitable, and voluntary and community sectors."

North Korea: Secretive State

2009-05-29T12:06:00.000-07:00

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/asia_pacific/2006/north_korea/. Source: The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Collection of news and analysis about North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea). Includes a North Korea timeline, material about the Korean War, background about leader Kim Jong-il, and coverage of North Korea's April 2009 nuclear rocket test launch and international responses.

World Press Freedom Committee launches new website

2009-05-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.wpfc.org.

Want to know how many journalists are currently imprisoned, and where they are in the world? Check out the newly redesigned website of the World Press Freedom Committee (WPFC). The new wpfc.org includes a host of multimedia features, such as a Google map with the details of the 120 journalists in jail today, and videos on hot free expression issues, such as restrictions on journalists in China in the run up to the Olympic Games.

Gallop: Muslim relations

2009-05-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.muslimwestfacts.com/MWFHOMEPAGE/home.aspx.

As part of the Gallup World Poll, Gallup gathers data from the Muslim world and the West regarding people's beliefs about education, religion, culture, and democracy.

World Digital Library (WDL)

2009-05-14T13:24:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.wdl.org/en/.

Launched in April 2009, the WDL "makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world," including manuscripts, maps, books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, and photographs. Browse by place, time, topic, type of item, or institution. Developed by a team at the U.S. Library of Congress, with contributions by national libraries and with the support of UNESCO and companies and private foundations.

The Myth of Exporting Democracy

2009-05-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

URL: http://pomed.org/blog/2009/04/the-myth-of-exporting-democracy.html/. Source: German Marshall Fund.

This report analyzes the paths of democratization in the post-Communist world of central and eastern Europe and argues that “the United States and Europe should not retreat from their support for democratic reform abroad, but rather redefine the place of democracy promotion in a revitalized transatlantic agenda.”

Freedom of the Press 2009 Survey Release

2009-05-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

URL: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=470. Source: The POMED Wire.

Freedom House has released its Freedom of the Press 2009 survey, concluding that for the first time global press freedom has declined in every region. Furthermore, “the rollback was not confined to traditionally authoritarian states; with Israel, Italy and Hong Kong slipping from the study’s Free category to Partly Free status.”

The Middle East and North Africa continue to have “the world’s lowest level of press freedom” with Libya in particular being one of the worst-rated countries in the world.

INDEX ON CENSORSHIP HONOURS FREE EXPRESSION CHAMPIONS

2009-04-23T12:30:00.001-07:00

Software that helps get around censorship and a Malaysian human rights lawyer who faced numerous death threats are among the winners of Index on Censorship's 2008 Freedom of Expression Awards, which pay tribute to people and organisations around the world that have made outstanding contributions to free expression.

This year's Guardian Journalism Award, which recognises determined and brave journalism offering a different point of view, went to Sri Lanka's paper "Sunday Leader" and its journalists, who have been subject to threats and harassment since it was launched 15 years ago.

The assassination of editor Lasantha Wickrematunge in January sparked protests and vigils around the world. His brother Lal has since taken on the position of editor.

The Economist New Media Award went to Psiphon, a software tool developed at the University of Toronto that lets people in a country that censors the Internet get access to web pages anywhere, bypassing government restrictions. Psiphon is launching a new version next month at: http://psiphon.ca