IRCPPS in the Links: Is Burma on the verge of a democratic thaw?

in Dart-Throwing Chimp, Jay Ulfelder gives some analysis:

...Viewed through this wider lens, recent events in Burma make a little more sense. Like Gorbachev’s initially timid steps toward openness (glasnost) in support of economic restructuring (perestroika), the Burmese government’s recent reforms seem to identify that country as a budding case of liberalization by imposition. After the collapse of the USSR, dictators may have become more inclined to err on the side of caution and forego the potential gains from reduced economic friction. More recently, though, the Chinese government’s success (so far) in managing these trade-offs in its favor seems to have re-opened the door to liberalization from above.

IRCPPS in the Links: Democratic Consolidation and Time

At Dart-Throwing Chimp, Jay Ulfelder re-considers the relationship between a democracy's age and the likelihood of if breaking down.  In two separate posts, he argues that:

 traditional thinking about the relationship between the passage of time and democratic consolidation is biased by a selection effect. Yes, the risk of a reversion to authoritarian rule is lower in older democracies than it is in younger ones, but that’s really because the democracies most susceptible to breakdown have already been weeded out. For fragile democracies, the risk of breakdown actually increases over time, unless and until they manage to transform themselves into lower-risk cases by producing an alternation in power or deepening protections for civil liberties. After that, there is essentially no association between the passage of time and the prospects for regime survival...

IRCPPS in the Links: Expert Coverage of Putin's Decision to Run for a Third Term as Russian President

Excellent roundup of coverage from The Monkey Cage, in three posts:

Putin in 2012: More Expert Analysis
Putin in 2012: Guest Commentary
Putin in 2012: More Expert Analysis

IRCPPS in the Links: Post-Election Analysis: United Arab Emirates

via The Monkey Cage:

Following on this previous post, here is Zachary Smith on the recent UAE election.  Zachary is the opinion editor of The Daily Nebraskan and was a 2010 Boren Scholar in Jordan. 

On Saturday, September 24, the United Arab Emirates held its second-ever parliamentary election. Given the small size of the electorate in the 2006 election (just under 6,000 citizens were given the right to vote), it was hard to predict the results of this election, in which voters selected half—20—of the Federal National Council...