Teaching Comparative Government

Like many other European countries, Russia is facing an aging population. That means paying for pensions becomes more and more difficult. How does Russia's population distribution compare with that of other countries you're studying? Do those countries face more, less, or similarly difficult problems? What are the political consequences of those problems? Russia protests: Thousands rally over plan to raise pension age Thousands of people have taken part in protests in cities across Russia to express their anger at government proposals to raise the pension age. Demonstrators in the capital, Moscow, carried banners reading: "We want to live on our pensions, not die at work." The government says it wants to raise the pension age from 60 to 65 for men, and from 55 to 63 for women, to help cope with a shrinking workforce. Communist Party protesters But unions warn many people will not live long enough to claim a pension. Russian men have a life expectancy of just 66, while...

In political terms the events of May and June 1989 are more ancient than the Qing Dynasty. The massacre that took place in Tiananmen Square on June 4 has been hidden from or forgotten by most people, but the political elite remembers well. Should we? Portraits of persistence: the Hongkongers refusing to let memories of China’s 1989 Tiananmen crackdown die Ahead of Monday’s anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters, the Post spoke to two of the few Hongkongers who witnessed the chaotic clearance operation. The pair shared how they narrowly escaped death amid the gunfire and tanks that ran across the city on the night of June 3 and early morning of June 4. Tiananmen Square, 1989 Kenneth Lam, then a student leader at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has since become a local human rights lawyer, fighting for the rights of grass-roots workers. He considers his work an extension of the spirit that drove the Tiananmen protest movement almost three decades ago. Taking a dif...

It appears that economic protests are taking place in Iran. (See the original article for some important charts.) Labor Strikes and Worker Protests Erupt Across Iran: ‘This is Slavery’ Teachers went on strike in central Iran’s city of Yazd. Steelworkers and hospital staff walked off the job in the southwest city of Ahvaz. Railway employees protested near Tabriz. And a bus drivers union in Tehran battled the private companies that control many city routes. These were among the hundreds of recent outbreaks of labor unrest in Iran, an indication of deepening discord over the nation’s economic troubles. Workers are turning not only against their employers but also Iran’s government, piling pressure on leaders who promised but failed to deliver better times in the two years since economic sanctions were lifted in the nuclear deal… Prices of eggs, meat and bread are rising more than 10% a year, compounding consumer woes. Unemployment is about 12%, and the Iranian rial has fallen sharply ag...

It seems as if protesters find new methods of expression as often as the Iranian government shuts down avenues of protest. Iranians launch banknote protest to get round censorship "Banknotes are our un-censorable messengers," one user wrote, referring to a rumoured plan to permanently block the popular messaging app Telegram, which is by far the most popular digital communication tool in Iran. Slogans included "I am an overthrower". Some of the sayings were originally chanted during mass anti-establishment protests at the turn of the year. In late December, demonstrators took to the streets then to express their dissatisfaction with the social and economic situation in the country. Telegram was believed to have been the main platform people used to obtain and share information about the protests, which took place across Iran from late December 2017 to January 2018. Nearly 8,000 tweets have been posted since 28 April under the hashtag #Onehundredthousand_talking_ba...

The primary source of this story comes from Al Arabiya .  The protests in Iran are taking place in the province of Khuzestan, located in the southwest part of the country adjoining the Persian Gulf. The province is the heart of Iran's oil wealth. A problem is that Khuzestan is also home to most of Iran's Arab minority (about 2% of the country's population). Ahwaz is a region in Khuzestan. We haven't heard much about this region because it's been repeatedly suppressed by Iranian regimes (pre- and post-revolutionary). It is a reminder that political cleavages often persist even after major political changes. Security forces suppress Iran’s Ahwaz protests as they reach fourth day Iranian security forces, backed by units of anti-riot police and the Revolutionary Guard, suppressed night demonstrations on the fourth day of protests by Arab citizens in the center of the city on Saturday… Videos and images shared on social media and local Ahwaz TV channels showed protester...