Civil society organisations (CSOs) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) face mounting challenges, especially in authoritarian states, where they encounter closures, persecution and smear campaigns. Consequently, their crucial work in advancing human rights, good governance and inclusive...

Despite the mounting costs of the pandemic at the global scale, the country-specific costs were rather heterogenous. National performances varied depending on the restrictive measures adopted, institutional strength, as well as adherence to stringency measures. We illustrate that obedience and...

Academic freedom is a cornerstone of modern academic life. It is not only implied by basic liberal principles but also contributes to scientific progress and economic growth. It is therefore important to better understand what affects how free scholarly pursuits are, and to that end, we ask...

On 24 March 2024, presidential elections were held in Senegal, with opposition politician Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, who was 43 at the time, emerging as the winner. On 2 April 2024, he was sworn in as the fifth President of the Republic of Senegal. This event may mark a turning point in the...

We computationally reproduce the central findings in Mehmood (2022), which studied the effect of a 2010 reform in Pakistan replacing the presidential appointment of high-court judges with peer appointments. Mehmood leveraged judicial records interpreted and coded by lawyers in Pakistan at the...