On January 30, 2025, the National Assembly of Nicaragua approved a constitutional reform that significantly strengthens the power of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo. As highlighted by several international actors, the amendments introduced profoundly transform the country’s political system, reinforcing the Executive’s influence over other branches of the state. Many … Read more
How Belarusian “Artivists” Reclaim the past to Forge a Future In the years following the brutal suppression of pro-democracy protests in Belarus in 2020 and 2021, a wave of politically engaged Belarusian artists – visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, poets and novelists – have been driven into exile. Many have been branded as “extremists” by the … Read more
Third Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reimagining Democracy (IWORD 2024) Last month, Henry Farrell and I convened the Third Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reimagining Democracy (IWORD 2024) at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg Center in Washington DC. This is a small, invitational workshop on the future of democracy. As with the previous two workshops, the goal was to bring … Read more
Competition law, given its history and potential as a tool of anti-domination, is a natural fit to protect and revitalise democracy in Europe from the threats posed by excessive concentrations of private power. Yet competition law is often seen as a limited tool, capable of playing only a marginal role in Europe’s response to the … Read more
At the dawn of 2025, liberal democracy is faced with a considerable challenge: Big Tech bosses appear to leverage their market power for far-reaching political influence, without any democratic legitimisation to do so. As someone working on issues of market power in the digital economy, one cannot help but wonder: shouldn’t competition law be able … Read more
