Garry Kasparov Quotes

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Latin America moved decisively away from military rule and toward civilian democracy.

With Taiwan, it took about 40 years to go from an authoritarian to a democratic society.

The transition from authoritarianism to democracy is not as easy as it appears in position papers – it is a rambunctious affair.

The speed with which armies collapse, bureaucracies abdicate, and social structures dissolve once the autocrat is removed frequently surprises American Policy makers.

All political institutions will end sooner or later. The question is when and how.

The dictator can be removed in a day, but it can take years to stamp out the lingering remnants of his dictatorship

The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.

The problem in Burma is the problem in Egypt, the problem you refer to in Yemen, and the problem in a lot of these countries in the world: that you can get stuck in the process of transition, in what’s been called a competitive authoritarian… a pseudo democratic regime.

Putinsim is not necessarily the end state for Russia. Russia has moved in many directions since the early 1980s.

We're in the middle of the transformation of a society that has handled its politics through repression to a society that will handle its politics through democratic institutions.

As long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period... Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression - and this is valid for South America - is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government.

The American administration obviously has supported the dictators in the Muslim countries and the Muslims are rising, as you can see their boiling in Libya and Egypt and many other countries and they're rising up against the oppression and the Americans should stay away from trying to, if you like, put another dictator in place, and I don't think the American interest in the current time in the Middle East with their presence, rather they should withdraw their forces, they should withdraw their own personnel, this is a very insecure time for the Americans I think.

The Arab spring reminds me a bit of the decolonisation process where one country gets independence and everybody else wants it. How about us, when do we get it, when do we make our move? And you have a situation where someone has been in power for decades, where the integrity of elections, democracy and security have really not been debated or discussed and most people suspect that elections are rigged and that the democratic rotation that elections are supposed to ensure doesn't really happen. And when this goes on for a while you are sitting on a powder keg.

We can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy.

The Germans should be the first to sympathize with us [Egyptians]. They know how difficult it is to build a democracy following a dictatorship, and they were the first to be critical of Morsi's anti-democratic policies.

I think those who have wanted regime [of Bashar Assad] change have made a mistake.

Saddam Hussein's regime is a gray and gathering danger.

Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.

I believe the democratic transformation in Iraq will lead to change in Middle East.

President Bush said it's now time for a change in Iraq and he wants them to have a Western-style democracy like ours. So right now in Iraq, the economy is collapsing, businessmen are corrupt, and Hussein wants his son to take over as president. Sounds like mission accomplished.

We do not deny the possibility of peaceful [political] transition, but we are still awaiting the first case.

Nobody should claim that the war [in Iraq] is over. But certainly it can be said that the regime is finished.

Toppling secular dictators in the Middle East has only led to chaos and the rise of radical Islam.

But how can you speed up the transformation of society in a country as large as Russia? Those sounding the moral outcry are the ones who are trying to dictate their standards from the outside. Of course, that isn't the right way to go either. One cannot impose democracy from the other side of national borders, which is something we ourselves experienced during the communist era. The West's policies toward Eastern Europe, the Helsinki process - none of that really helped us.

Alternatively, suppose Qaddafi winds up hanging from a lamppost in his favorite party dress. If you're a Third World dictator, what lessons would you draw? Qaddafi was the thug who came in from the cold, the one who (in the wake of Saddam's fall) renounced his nuclear program and was supposedly rehabilitated in the chancelleries of the West. He was a strong partner in the war on terrorism, according to U.S. diplomats. And what did Washington do? They overthrew him anyway.