During the meeting of the heads of state and government of the European Union on 1 March 2012, the second, hardly mediatised and yet important, election of the President of the European Council took place. The only candidate was the current president Herman Van Rompuy, of whom we often hear that he is too invisible and his work too inefficient. Why elect him nonetheless? Read more

In November 2010, Myanmar saw the first poll in 20 years. Even though the main military-backed party claimed victory, for the first time since it came to power the military regime yielded to the opposition forces. A civilian power took over from the Junta, marking the first transition to democracy. This sudden political transition sparked the most significant political and economic reforms that the country has witnessed for the past half decade. Read more

After the fall of the Soviet Union, populism emerged in the Belarusian political context as an effective instrument to come to power and to retain it. A democratically elected president, Alexander Lukashenko, has been governing since 1994; his unique leadership style continuously attracts the attention of the international community, not least because of its populist character.   Read more

Europe has recently been rocked by an international scandal that entangled an ex-KGB man wanted for ordering mass killings in Lithuania, named Michail Golovatov, Austrian law, Lithuanian institutions and the unity as well as the standing of the European Union. At the core of this event was the fact that Austrian officials set free the soviet officer just a few hours after his arrest in Vienna. We have decided to find out how two scholars of different subjects who originate from the post-Soviet countries and who gained their education at western universities would evaluate this situation. Read more