As recently as 2016 Russia was still the dominant world power after the United States. But China has overtaken it, given relevance on the world stage by Trump’s ineffective trade war against the empire of the middle. China has not failed to seize the opportunity to increasingly demonstrate that it can assert hegemony. One way it is doing this is through increasing ‘authoritarian encroachment’ that is also being emulated by other autocrats across the world. This situation challenges and poses a real danger to global democratic renewal. This article is published by Democracy Digest. Here is an excerpt:

One reason many countries were willing to embrace democratic models was the success of the US and other Western nations in the 20th century. But if democracy no longer looks like a successful model — and keeps backsliding  — that source of inspiration will dim, VOX’s German Lopez observes.

A new political force called We Continue the Change (PP) is the surprise winner of Bulgaria’s third parliamentary election in a year. Led by two energetic businessmen, Harvard graduates Kiril Petkov and Assen Vassilev, it won 67 of the parliament’s 240 seats, Vessela Tcherneva writes for the European Council on Foreign Relations. @vtcherneva But Bulgaria is not alone in experiencing a degree of democratic renewal, she adds:

In Hungary, parties have come together in a new coalition of six parties to remove the prime minister, Viktor Orban, who has ruled the country for over a decade and captured the state. In the Czech Republic, it took a five-party coalition to finally eject Andrej Babis after he had spent two terms in power. In Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic has become the epitome of ‘unreplaceable government’, and the divided opposition has been contributing to that prophecy. 

Read the full article here.