Georgia is facing erosion of human rights and civic space. Thousands of people have been arbitrarily detained and fined, hundreds subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, and more than 150 imprisoned following unfair and politically motivated proceedings. For more than 500 days, protesters across Georgia have continued to return to the streets.

After Viktor Orbán's defeat, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to crack down harder on the opposition. He has already arrested Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) leading presidential contender, in March 2025. In the 14 months since his arrest, over 500 more people have been detained, including 16 CHP-affiliated mayors.

The defacement of the National Bureau of Investigation’s website over the weekend marked an escalation in a wave of attacks on Philippine government pages. It is the third major state body in less than a week to have its website compromised. The Senate's website was hacked on Wednesday and the House of Representatives' page on Saturday.

The Republican People’s Party (CHP) is facing a deepening internal crisis. Supporters of former party leader Özgür Özel are preparing contingency plans that could include launching a new political party. The dispute follows a court ruling that effectively restored former CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to the party leadership.

The ruling party is facing a difficult moment in its 12-year rule today with high fuel prices, inflation and growing unemployment. The general discontent in society is palpable. The opposition parties have been unsuccessful in channeling this anger and frustration against the government to mount a political challenge. The momentum generated by the BJP failing to secure a majority in the 2024 general election seems to have been frittered away.

R. DANIEL KELEMEN is the McCourt chair at the Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. Daniel ZIBLATT is Professor of Government and Director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority.

This article is one of 10 essays in the Summer 2026 print issue, The End of the World as We Know It. It's tempting to blame Putin and Trump for international law's demise, but it mostly deserved it. The old vocabulary of international law, with invocations of universal values, now sounds antique.

Tim and Ruth Ben-Ghiat had a conversation this afternoon. They discussed the difference between Superpower Suicide and Superpower Murder. They also explored other ways of naming and framing this moment and what each of us can practically do in response. Victor hopes you will find it illuminating.