AUTHOR
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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USA: 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
READ MOREDemocratic 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
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Bangladesh; 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
READ MOREAll The King’s Men0
- Commentary, Issue 28 – Spring 2019
- March 8, 2019
As Trump comes under increasing pressure from House Democrats for what appear to be illegal acts, he is blindly defended by Republicans in Congress, writes William Milam by William Milam March 8, 2019 Two friends sent me last week a video from an Al Jazeera TV show called Head to Head, a similar to the
READ MOREHistorical ironies; William Milam wonders if Sheikh Mujibur Rahman really understood what he had set in motion0
- Commentary, Issue 28 – Spring 2019
- February 22, 2019
by William MilamFebruary 22, 2019 About two years ago, when a friend and I were discussing Bangladesh politics and history over dinner, he mentioned to me a puzzling historical factoid: the last act of the effort to save a United Pakistan took place in Dhaka in March 1971. It involved tense and difficult negotiations between
READ MOREBangladesh: It ain’t over ‘til it is1
- Commentary
- February 9, 2019
by William Milam February 8, 2019 It will be a hard and maybe painful uphill slog to rebuild a coherent opposition in Bangladesh, writes William Milam Last Friday, February 1, the well-known and regarded weekly news magazineThe Economistconsigned Bangladesh to permanent authoritarianism, a political malady that has lately seemed to overwhelm the immune system of democracies.
READ MOREThe decline and fall of democracy0
- Commentary
- January 25, 2019
William Milam TFT Issue: 25 Jan 2019 The ‘state of exception’ is more likely to have been the basis for modern authoritarianism than of democracy, writes William MilamFacebookTwitterGoogle+WhatsAppEmailPrintFriendlyShare21 I write this on Monday, January 21, which in the US is a holiday celebrating the birth and the life of Martin Luther King (MLK). Outside, the
READ MOREBangladesh elections: Civilian coup d’état1
- Commentary
- January 12, 2019
William Milam 11 Jan 2019 Sheikh Hasina’s creeping authoritarianism is likely to resume and intensify, writes William Milam The Awami League (AL) has finally proven what many outside observers had thought since 2011: a free and fair election is not possible in Bangladesh under its current political structure. The December 30 election appears from the results
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