Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of falling oil and commodities prices on resource-exporting countries. According to a recent report in the Financial Times, certain regions of Australia have been hard hit by the commodities bust and declining Chinese demand. In an email interview, David Meredith, an associate member of the history faculty at the University of Oxford, discussed Australia’s economy and the role commodities play. WPR: How important are commodities for Australia’s economy, and what effect have falling commodity prices had on Australia’s economic growth? David Meredith: Although Australia has other […]

In recent years, Algeria has focused more of its foreign policy on its immediate neighborhood, both in North Africa and farther south in the Sahel. Its busy foreign minister, Ramtane Lamamra, has been active in mediation efforts in Mali, Libya and Tunisia, earning plaudits from Western partners. Some officials and observers have seized on this foreign policy outreach as a purported “awakening” of Algerian diplomacy in Africa, a revitalization of the country’s historically strong role in continental affairs. Lamamra himself highlighted Algeria’s important regional efforts in an interview in October with the French daily Le Monde. But has Algeria’s Africa […]

If there was one surprise in the overwhelming electoral victory by the Venezuelan opposition in Sunday’s legislative elections, it was that the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) accepted defeat so quickly and peacefully. But anyone who thinks that means the political temperature will cool down in Venezuela should think again. Opposition leaders never doubted they had the votes to overtake the heirs to the late Hugo Chavez. The question was whether President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s successor, and his backers would allow a free election to take place—and if they did permit the true vote count to be revealed, […]

Last week, the Israeli national security agency Shin Bet announced a series of arrests of extremist Israeli settlers suspected in the July arson attack that killed a Palestinian family of three in the West Bank village of Duma. The grisly incident, in which radicals from illegal Israeli settlements set a home on fire, leaving an 18-month-old boy to burn to death, brought settler violence to the fore. Although the Duma attack renewed concerns over settlement expansion and the violence it brings, such episodes are not new. As far back as 2008, settlers coined the term “price tag” to describe acts […]

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip to Kosovo last week was literally a “flying visit”; he didn’t leave Pristina’s Adem Jashari Airport. But that didn’t diminish the significance of the trip, which comes at a delicate time for Kosovo’s government. Prime Minister Isa Mustafa’s administration faces a domestic opposition so enraged that it has resorted to dropping tear gas in parliament, and a sharp worsening of relations with Serbia. Kosovo has also seen a larger proportion of its citizens join the self-proclaimed Islamic State than any other country in Europe, with high unemployment and disillusionment with mainstream politics making […]

Everyone it seems has a strategy for defeating the self-declared Islamic State. But the ones proposed by two of the Republican candidates for president truly stand out. Sen. Ted Cruz said last week that the United States should “carpet-bomb [the Islamic State] into oblivion.” He added, “I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out.” Donald Trump has a similar plan. Though he recently replied, when asked how he would deal with the group, that he would “leave [that] to your imagination,” he has talked previously about “bombing the [crap]” out of the […]

Over the course of its armed struggle with the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Iraq has devolved into a state captured by militias and foreign powers. The instability caused by a revived insurgency that took over Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul in June 2014 has facilitated the emergence of new armed actors and deepened the influence of older ones. The level of security engagement Baghdad receives from the West, including cooperation with the 60-nation coalition against the Islamic State, has not strengthened Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s position. His government remains fragile and fragmented, unable to consolidate power and exercise authority over militias […]

In the years leading up to the Iran nuclear deal, Iran and China found their interests at times aligning and at others diverging. Since the late 1990s, China had reduced its defense ties with Iran under U.S. pressure. At the same time, espousing a discourse of peace and cooperation, Beijing did not want the West to go to war with Iran. Moreover, Tehran’s perseverance in the face of Western efforts to isolate Iran was a counterbalancing force against U.S. hegemony in the Middle East, which suited China’s strategic interests. However, the conflict with Iran over its nuclear program also indirectly […]

President Barack Obama’s oval office speech Sunday was intended to show toughness and resolve in the war against the self-declared Islamic State, and to reassure a jittery public in the aftermath of the domestic attack by followers of the group in San Bernardino, California. At the end of his remarks, however, he reminded Americans to not allow their anxieties about terrorism to turn into hostility toward Muslim Americans. This is not sentimental rhetoric. It’s a critical part of the strategy toward defeating the group that can strengthen America’s social capital at home and soft power abroad. From Paris to San […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the European refugee crisis and European Union member states’ approaches to addressing it. In November, Slovenia started construction of a fence along its border with Croatia to help control the flow of refugees entering the country. In an email interview, Katarina Vucko, a legal expert and researcher at the Peace Institute in Ljubljana, discussed Slovenia’s response to the refugee crisis. WPR: What policies is Slovenia pursuing on the national and European Union level to address the influx of refugees, and what is the government’s stance on the EU […]

Editor’s note: Judah Grunstein is filling in for Richard Gowan, who is out this week. Two elections yesterday, an ocean apart, upended politics in the nations that went to the polls, with implications for their surrounding regions. In Venezuela, the political opposition won parliamentary elections, dealing the first electoral setback above the municipal and provincial levels to the late Hugo Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in more than a decade.* In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front party (FN) topped the combined voting in first-round elections for regional governments, confirming the party’s entry into the mainstream of French […]

World Politics Review is excited to present its new weekly podcast, Trend Lines. Every Friday, host Peter Dörrie will have a conversation with a WPR editor—the Briefing—about the week’s significant events and issues. Then, in the second part of the show—the Report—a WPR contributor or on-the-ground source will take a more in-depth look at a single issue. This week in the Briefing, WPR Editor-in-Chief Judah Grunstein and Peter Dörrie discuss the COP21, Burkina Faso’s election, corruption and the shift to right-leaning politics in Latin America. In the Report, WPR contributor Ian Quick gives his insights into how the international community […]

On Monday, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) voted to add China’s currency, the yuan or renminbi, to a very short list of elite global reserve currencies. Next fall, the yuan will officially be added to the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket of currencies, which presently includes just the dollar, euro, yen and pound sterling. In part, the decision reflects the undeniable reality of China’s economic rise. However, the decision is also a pragmatic, perhaps even savvy, move by the IMF and the United States to further incorporate China into an international financial order that largely […]

After World War II, the United States had to learn how to be a global power. To do this it drew foreign policy and national security expertise from among university academics, civil service workers, senior policymakers, private sector specialists, some influential members of Congress and journalists from major national media. After a few years of debate, the foundational “big idea” for America’s Cold War strategy came from George Kennan, a career State Department official and a top expert on the Soviet Union and Russian history. Kennan argued that rather than bear the costs and risks of direct confrontation with Moscow, […]

More than two weeks after the Paris attacks of Nov. 13, much still remains unknown about the terrorists—three have yet to be identified—and the nature of the organizational and logistical networks behind the plot. As details come to light, they will continue to inform a better understanding of the actual threat and the best ways to counter it. In the meantime, with the immediate shock somewhat faded, it is possible to weigh what we now know about the attacks in a more considered manner, and to draw some conclusions about France’s initial responses. The profiles of the attackers as established […]

World leaders are convening in Paris this week for COP21, the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference, in hopes of reaching an agreement on how to slow global warming. Although momentum toward clean energy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions has increased around the world, a real shift will require more coordination, better-enforced legal frameworks and a renewed focus on innovation. All of the articles linked below are free for nonsubscribers until Dec. 17. What’s at Stake in Paris? In Climate Talks, as in Syria, Half-Measures Must Do for France’s HollandeFrom managing security measures following the Paris attacks of Nov. 13 to […]

With just two and a half months to go before presidential and legislative elections in Niger, the political climate is turning increasingly sour. The tensions ahead of February’s vote broke into the open last month when former Prime Minister Hama Amadou—the leader of the opposition Moden Lumana party who has declared his plans to stand as a presidential candidate next year—was arrested on his arrival in Niamey. Amadou had fled into exile in Paris in August 2014 after being accused of involvement in a baby-trafficking scandal. He has repeatedly claimed that the attempts to charge him in connection with the […]