(Los Angeles Times) Political science professor Sergei Medvedev, a longtime lover and explorer of the Arctic, drew the ire of Russian President Vladimir Putin when he recently called for international protection of the icy northern region in the face of economic development plans. Last month, Putin...

(Foreign Policy) Over the past few years, authoritarian regimes have come to place an increasingly high premium on the veneer and perceptions of elections, rather than on their substance. Today's savvier, more media-conscious autocrats are taking this approach to a whole new level: they are...