The following article by D. Parvaz was posted on the ThinkProgress website December 21, 2017:
Populist leaders and dictators-in-the-making have consolidated their grips on power, at times with the full support of the Trump administration.
This year has not been great for the cause of democracy – in fact, 2017 could easily be called the Year of the Authoritarian. Hardliners from Asia to Latin America tightened their grip on power, granting themselves sweeping powers: controlling their judiciary, rewriting their constitutions or, in fact, enshrining their doctrine into their country’s constitution.
Rights groups, think tanks, and other non-governmental organizations around the world compile data on governments, creating metrics by which to measure authoritarianism, and pretty much no one has a rosy view of 2017. Continue reading “Power grabs and crackdowns: 2017 has been a great year for authoritarians”