Word: authoritarian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...become French. Both feel warm about America but cool toward President George W. Bush. Neither gets emotional over the idea of European unity, preferring to see what works - and what doesn't. Their natures, too, are similar: both are impatient, often short-tempered and, say their critics, sometimes authoritarian. Yet both have had to bide their time and, to their evident frustration, wait their turn to assume power...
...feted the victor at Place de la Concorde. Soon radicals in other French cities followed suit, resulting in what police tallied as, 730 cars torched, 78 cops wounded, and nearly 600 rioters arrested nationwide. On Monday night, marches in Paris against what protestors denounced as Sarkozy's hard-right, authoritarian and anti-immigrant policies swelled to up to 500, ultimately degenerating into clashes with police as they dispersed near Bastille. By midnight, nearly 100 had been arrested after trashing property in the area. Similar protests broke out in other French cities both nights, with violent altercations and arrests occurring...
...Yeltsin had moments that made one believe Russia could shed its authoritarian shackles. His defining moment was in August 1991. While Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was summering in the Crimea, dark forces opposed to Gorbachev and his stop-start reforms tried to stage a coup. Yeltsin's political instincts were still sharp, and he raced to the scene, outside Russia's White House. He climbed atop a tank and urged defiance. The putsch failed. Gorby returned to Moscow, but when he declared his unshaken faith in the Soviet state, Russia was Yeltsin's. By Christmas, the U.S.S.R. was done...
...leaders, political change is inevitable. But Mann sees a third way, a path between the advent of democracy and a collapse into chaos that is generally considered to be China's only alternative to political change. Twenty years from now, he says, China could still be as authoritarian as it is today. Far from ushering in democracy, it's possible that China's newly rich urban élite, with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, could keep its rural masses disenfranchised indefinitely. The U.S. needs to keep that scenario in mind when dealing with Beijing, Mann says...
...urging of his agent, despite knowing very little about China. I'm inclined to agree with Mann on the likelihood of democracy evolving in China anytime soon: as long as the economic boom continues to raise living standards, many Chinese will be inclined to leave the current system-authoritarian as it may be-alone. There is a place in the world, of course, for inductive reasoning like Hutton's, and for fresh ideas presented by nonspecialists. But in this case I'll have to concur with a certain Hunanese poet and politician who advised that it was best to "seek...