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William Milam
Ambassador William Milam is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC and a former US diplomat who was Ambassador to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Chief of Mission in Liberia.
Covering Policy Issues from South Asia
William Milam
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Bangladesh: Enabling the Future0
- Commentary, Issue 31 – Winter 2020
- October 19, 2019
The problem in Bangladesh is primarily that no basis was ever established for an effective two-party system, writes William Milam by William Milam October 18, 2019 “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.” So said the celebrated French pioneer aviator, poet, novelist and journalist Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
READ MOREUSA: The Impeachment Gamble0
- Commentary
- October 6, 2019
Impeachment will not get rid of Trump. The only way is to defeat him in next year’s election, writes William Milam by William Milam October 6, 2019 I have tried faithfully in the past few months to avoid writing about American politics, but the sudden emergence of a serious attempt to impeach President Trump is
READ MOREIt ain’t necessarily over in Afghanistan0
- Commentary, Issue 30 – Fall 2019
- September 20, 2019
This rupture gives all stakeholders a chance to come together and build a revised peace process around a new structure, writes William Milam by William Milam September 20, 2019 I wrote a fortnight ago about the dangers of negotiating with the Afghan Taliban, in the context of the news that the US and the Taliban
READ MOREThe cut-and-run strategy in Afghanistan0
- Commentary
- September 6, 2019
The Taliban are ready to negotiate. The question is whether they are negotiating in good faith, writes William Milam by William Milam September 6, 2019 It is Monday, September 2, as I write this, the Labour Day holiday in the US. The equivalent holiday in most other countries is May Day, or International Workers Day,
READ MOREAuthoritarianism marches on in South Asia2
- Commentary, Issue 30 – Fall 2019
- August 25, 2019
India acted similarly to Russia, as the hegemon of South Asia, doing what it wanted to because it could, writes William Milam by William Milam August 25, 2019 I promised friends that I would write more this week about the contradictions and trade-offs involved in governing countries which revere free speech but face internal extremist
READ MOREUSA: The enemy within0
- Commentary
- August 10, 2019
White nationalists have always been present in American life. But what no one expected was that a president would imply sympathy to their cause, writes William Milam The enemy within – The Friday Times by William Milam August 9, 2019 Americans these days seem to be waking up every morning to the news of another
READ MOREImran Khan goes to Washington0
- Commentary
- July 28, 2019
If you listen to Khan, corruption is not only the main problem, it is the solution, writes William Milam by William MilamJuly 26, 2019 Because it centred on corruption, I couldn’t help thinking of the 1939 film Mr Smith Goes to Washington at the beginning of Imran Khan’s public presentation to a friendly audience at the US Institute
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Democratic Decline: Real or Imagined?0
- Commentary, Featured
- July 6, 2019
by William Milam July 5, 2019 I have written much in the past few months about what academics have been calling “democratic decline” or what more recently some academics have renamed “autocratization.” No matter what one calls it, clearly there are a number of countries which have moved away from a more liberal democratic political
READ MOREThe Orwellian Future is Now0
- Commentary
- June 15, 2019
The Orwellian Future is Now – The Friday Times Orwell seems to have foreseen the constants of our global and national life in the second decade of the 21st century, writes William Milam by William Milam June 14, 2019 Last week we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the June 6, 1944 D-Day landings on the
READ MORENow the days are dragon ridden, the nightmare rides upon sleep0
- Commentary
- May 31, 2019
William Milam on the implications of Narendra Modi’s decisive electoral win on South Asia by William Milam May 31, 2019 In some ways, it seems to me, the world has turned in the last few weeks from just topsy-turvy, meaning unpredictable and worrisomely unstable, to downright scary. Yeats’s words in his poem about the 1919-1921
READ MOREThe wages of censorship0
- Commentary
- May 20, 2019
Self-censorship is not uncommon in today’s world, but it is usually the result of threat by a government, writes William Milam by William MilamMay 17, 2019 in News & Analysis, Comment 0Share on FacebookShare on Twitter Earlier this week I attended a lecture by the eminent American historian of early American culture, Joanne Freeman of
READ MOREDemocracy to Autocracy: Bangladesh in Context0
- Commentary
- April 20, 2019
The old BNP cannot be part of the new opposition. It needs to cut away the baggage of its mistakes and its toxic parts, writes William Milam by William Milam April 19, 2019 I received another interesting academic article on the retreat of democracy a few days ago. It is co-authored by two scholars, one
READ MOREBangladesh; Back to BAKSAL?0
- Commentary, Issue 29 – Summer 2019
- April 6, 2019
Bangladesh has clearly crossed the midline on the continuum between full democracy and closed autocracy, writes William Milam by William Milam April 5, 2019 According to a report carried in a Bangladeshi news service, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ruminated about Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL) in an address at an award ceremony on March
READ MOREAutocratization: Is Bangladesh ahead or behind schedule?0
- Commentary
- March 22, 2019
Where there are waves, there must be retreats, writes William Milam by William MilamMarch 22, 2019 Two Swedish political scientists have just published a fascinating study of the continuing growth of authoritarianism, which seems to have been renamed “autocratization.” Google defines autocratization as the reverse of democratization, i.e. going from a democratic political system or
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