Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Brazil’s embattled president, Dilma Rousseff, has suffered many setbacks since late last year, perhaps none worse than when the lower house of Brazil’s National Congress accepted an impeachment motion against her in early December. The barrage of negative headlines, however, is unlikely to cut short Rousseff’s term in office, since the political and legal bars to oust her are much higher than those to block impeachment proceedings in the National Congress. In recent weeks, the move to impeach her, which looked more likely in December, has lost some of its momentum. But a hasty impeachment process had little chance of […]

As the Republican candidates in the presidential race work to define themselves and stand out from the crowded competition for the party nomination, many claim to be the heir of GOP icon Ronald Reagan. This makes sense given Reagan’s enduring popularity. This is particularly true for national security policy, where Reagan is considered a great success who revived American influence and paved the way for the end of the Cold War. But while claiming Reagan’s mantle, none of the candidates seem interested in actually emulating his strategy. One of the keys to Reagan’s success was lavishing resources on the U.S. […]

Long considered to be a post-conflict success story, Mozambique currently finds itself in a period of uncertainty, with past political progress and current economic opportunities threatened by unresolved tensions on both fronts. The government’s decades-long war with the Mozambican National Resistance, a rebel group turned political party that is known as Renamo, officially ended 24 years ago. After a period of postwar reconstruction, the country has enjoyed steady and solid economic progress. GDP growth has averaged between 7 and 8 percent for the past decade, and the discovery of significant reserves of coal and gas have driven robust foreign investment. […]

The epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgency, Nigeria’s conflict-wracked northeast, did not erupt in celebration following the Dec. 23 announcement by President Muhammadu Buhari that his country had “technically” defeated the jihadi group. On the streets of Yola, the capital of Adamawa State, security personnel were out in force the next day, presumably to prevent Boko Haram from carrying out attacks during the holiday season. Residents of nearby internally displaced persons camps, meanwhile, expressed apprehension at the prospect of returning to their homes, due to concerns over the ongoing armed conflict between Boko Haram and the Nigerian military along the […]

Last year was a busy one for elections in Africa, and 2016 will bring many more, with polls ranging from the Central African Republic later this month to Ghana in November. The upcoming presidential election in the small West African country of Benin, scheduled for Feb. 28, is notable because there is no incumbent in the race. Outgoing President Boni Yayi, who won election in 2006 and re-election in 2011, is stepping aside out of respect for a constitutional provision that limits presidents to two terms—a growing rarity in a region with a new generation of aspiring presidents-for-life. Benin’s wide-open […]

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made his first visit to Washington as prime minister this week, where he met with President Barack Obama and gave a national security speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In his speech at CSIS, Turnbull discussed the Syrian civil war and expressed confidence in the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, which he referred to as ISIL. The coalition against the Islamic State “will win,” he said, “by targeting ISIL militarily, using local ground forces supported by coalition air power, weapons and training; curbing ISIL finances; stopping foreign fighter flows; and […]

Last week marked the formal implementation of the agreement signed last summer by Iran and the international community to roll back Tehran’s nuclear program. Although the news did not create as much of a fuss as the actual signing of the agreement in July, in the larger context of international relations, it’s still a pretty big deal. The agreement is a critical step forward for nuclear nonproliferation efforts and for the upholding of global norms and the will of the international community. It’s a victory for the notion that intractable international issues can be resolved via diplomacy and negotiations, rather […]

Twenty-five years after the fall of communism and almost 10 years after gaining membership in the European Union, Bulgaria is plagued by widespread corruption, misappropriation of public funds and vote-rigging in nearly every election. Many Bulgarians say their country’s democracy is in shambles. The past several years were marked by widespread protests and a banking crisis that forced former Socialist Party Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski to resign in 2014 after little more than a year in office. Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest country, is now on its fifth government since 2013. But despite changes in leadership, voters continue to express their […]

It was a rare week of good news in the Middle East. Iran met its obligations to formally launch all the provisions of the nuclear agreement agreed to with world powers last July, an early demonstration of its commitment to radically restructure its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Tehran also surprised many observers with the quick release of 10 U.S. sailors detained last week after they inadvertently navigated into Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. Finally, in the latest step forward in building a more functional relationship between Washington and Tehran, the two sides completed secret negotiations […]

This past week, Iran satisfied its obligations for implementing the nuclear deal reached last July with world powers, earning it relief from sanctions. The prisoner swap with the United States that followed hinted that a new era of possible cooperation between Washington and Tehran could be in the cards as the result of last year’s hard-earned diplomatic victory. But how relations will unfold, and how they will fare under the next U.S. administration, remain unclear. Iran’s other relationships are also in flux. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties with Iran following an attack on its embassy in Tehran […]

Editor’s note: The following article is one of 30 that we’ve selected from our archives to celebrate World Politics Review’s 15th anniversary. You can find the full collection here. DAKAR, Senegal—“Africa’s luck is that it has youth on its side. But we need to harness that luck,” says Senegalese rapper Keyti, his voice ringing out to the crowd of young people before him at Cheikh Anta Diop University’s outdoor basketball court. It’s a mid-November evening in Dakar, Senegal’s capital. Hundreds of men, mostly youth, gather on plastic chairs or dangle their legs over cement ledges, gazing out onto center court, listening […]

Syria diplomacy is back. International alarm over the self-proclaimed Islamic State has given new urgency to a political settlement that would bring some stability to Syria after nearly five years of civil war, as well as align the country’s warring parties and interested world powers against the jihadi group. The International Syria Support Group, which includes the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, has invested in a diplomatic process that made seeming progress in Vienna in November. In a joint statement subsequently endorsed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, the group called for U.N.-supervised negotiations later […]

In the latest Trend Lines podcast, WPR Editor-in-Chief Judah Grunstein and host Peter Dörrie discuss Taiwan’s presidential election, the “comfort women” agreement between Japan and South Korea, and Zimbabwe’s succession crisis. For the report, Human Rights Watch’s Judith Sunderland joins us to talk about Europe’s challenge integrating the massive influx of migrants and refugees in an increasingly hostile political and social climate. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant WPR articles: Outcome of Taiwan’s Election Could Help Boost Ties With Japan Japan-South Korea ‘Comfort Women’ Deal Revives U.S. Asia Pivot The Elephant in the Room: Zimbabwe’s Ongoing Succession Crisis For Europe, […]

On Saturday, Jan. 16, Taiwan will hold a critical election that is likely to see the country vote in its first female president, Tsai Ing-wen. If elected, Tsai, who currently holds a double-digit lead in most polls, would herald a new era of politics in Taiwan and establish only the second government led by the liberal Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), after more than seven decades of political dominance by the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party. Adding to the intrigue is the race between the DPP and the KMT for the legislature, known as the Legislative Yuan. The KMT currently has 64 […]

Once again the Obama administration is revising its programs to counter and defeat the self-styled Islamic State, particularly on the battlefield of ideas. With no apparent decline in supporters flocking to the movement nor any shortage of unhinged murderers inspired by it, State Department officials announced that they were creating a new “Global Engagement Center” to combat the Islamic State online. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama met with social media-savvy representatives from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to convince them to join the effort. This is simply the latest episode of a series now deep into reruns: The United States fiddles with […]

Is there a tipping point for the grim state of affairs in Egypt, where the fifth anniversary of the popular uprising that brought down former President Hosni Mubarak is less than two weeks away? On Jan. 7, supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood clashed with police outside a hotel in Giza; no one was injured, but the exchange of gunfire was another hit to Egypt’s tourism industry. It was also a rare sign of Brotherhood supporters taking to the streets, after being severely repressed over the past two and a half years. The next day, two men armed with knives […]

On Dec. 17, dozens of delegates from Libya’s two rival parliaments, as well as from local municipalities and civil society, signed a United Nations-brokered deal to form a national unity government and hopefully halt the country’s long descent into unrest and civil war. Talks had been ongoing for almost a year, with plenty of obstacles along the way. But almost a month on, the agreement’s prospects are decidedly mixed. The nascent Government of National Accord has yet to be fully formed. A nine-member presidential council is up and running, although working mostly from Tunis. Overall, the power-sharing process outlined in […]