Democracy Lab Weekly Brief, June 03, 2013

Firat Demir explores the grievances that have prompted Turks to take to the streets to protest the policies of their government.

Vidar Helgesen makes the case for incorporating democracy benchmarks in the next round of global development goals.

Mac Margolis reports on a setback in the case against a former Guatemalan dictator accused of genocide — and what it says about the rule of law in Latin America.

Twenty years later, Karen J. Coates takes a skeptical look at the legacy of the ambitious United Nations peacekeeping efforts in Cambodia.

Mohamed Eljarh writes about the resignation of Libya’s president, Mohamed al-Magariaf, as the result of a tough new law targeting former officials of the Qaddafi regime.

Juan Nagel examines at the ominous decline of Globovisión, one of the last bastions of free speech in Venezuela.

And Mohamed El Dahshan reports on a new campaign against domestic violence in Saudi Arabia.

And now for this week’s recommended reads:

The German Marshal Fund offers a must-read analysis of the growing disconnect between government and the governed in Europe and the United States.

International IDEA and the Center for Constitutional Transitions at New York University present a new paper comparing the constitutional transitions in Egypt and Tunisia.

The U.S. National Endowment for Democracy offers a study of the role of think tanks in emerging democracies, showing how they play a vital role in promoting discussion and spreading ideas.

Writing in The London Review of Books, Patrick Coburn explains how the stalemated Syrian civil war is breaking down the post-colonial order of the Middle East.

Radio Free Asia reports on the historic truce between the Burmese government and Kachin separatists that could mark a watershed in the country’s long history of ethnic conflict. The International Crisis Group’s Jim Della-Giacoma dissects a new law proposed by a regional government in Burma that limits the number of children that can be born to Muslim families. Human Rights Watch assails Burma’s failure to demobilize child soldiers.

In Foreign Policy, James Traub argues that Somalia is finally leaving the ranks of the world’s failed states.

Writing for Time, Rania Abouzeid details how Libyan weapons are making their way to Syrian rebels.

John Campbell blogs for the Council on Foreign Relations about Robert Mugabe’s recent attacks on Nelson Mandela, accused by Mugabe of being "soft on whites."

And finally, on the eve of June 4, The South China Morning Post recounts the fate of a little-known Chinese democracy activist, Wang Bingzhang, who is serving out a life sentence in jail. (He’s just marked the end of his tenth year of imprisonment.)