Diplomacy & Politics Archive

On June 5, the Maldives’ former vice president, Ahmed Adeeb, was convicted of attempting to assassinate its president, Abdulla Yameen, the latest politically motivated court case against the opposition. In an email interview, New Delhi-based journalist Vishal Arora discusses the state of democracy and rule of law in the Maldives. WPR: What is the state of democracy and rule of law in the Maldives, and how has the space for political dissent been reduced since the 2012 resignation of former President Mohamed Nasheed, his subsequent arrest and trial, and the legal proceedings against other opposition leaders? Vishal Arora: While democratic […]

Benin’s two-round elections, held earlier this year on March 6 and March 20, delivered a decisive victory for opposition candidate and cotton magnate Patrice Talon. As in some other Francophone West African countries, the two-round system facilitated a political upset. Talon finished in second place in the first round, with just 23.5 percent of the vote. In the second round, however, he defeated outgoing President Thomas Boni Yayi’s handpicked candidate, then-Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou, with more than 65 percent of the vote. Zinsou quickly conceded, and Benin won international acclaim for the latest milestone in its 25-year-old democracy. Talon has […]

United Nations officials currently find themselves in a position similar to that of members of a religious cult who, having expected the messiah to appear in the near future, begin to grasp that there is no savior after all. For almost a decade, they have labored unhappily under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. They believe that he is too cautious and too loyal to the U.S. and other big powers. But with Ban leaving office at the end of this year, U.N. staffers have hoped and prayed that a far more decisive and independent leader will take his place in 2017. Their […]

Last week, the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, released an opinion accusing Poland’s government of endangering the rule of law and violating the EU’s democratic principles. The report is the first step in a process that could lead to EU sanctions on Warsaw, including the suspension of voting rights in EU deliberations, and comes after a months-long investigation into changes made to Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal. Many observers have called the changes, which have plunged Poland into a constitutional crisis, undemocratic. The crisis began last October, when the previous right-of-center government led by the Civic Platform party, […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss El Salvador’s iron-fisted approach to gangs, the Republic of Congo’s violent crackdown on the opposition, and Turkey’s and South Korea’s diplomatic outreach to Africa. For the Report, journalist Yaqiu Wang joins us to talk about the struggle to keep dissent in China alive in the internet age. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: El Salvador’s ‘Iron Fist’: Inside Its Unending War on Gangs Opposition Has No Way Out of Republic of Congo’s Political Violence Turkey Looks to Play Larger Economic and Security […]

When a country’s economy is doing poorly and voters are suffering, a government can expect to be voted out of office on election day. So Mongolia’s upcoming parliamentary elections June 29 could see a staggering defeat for the ruling Democratic Party (DP), which has led successive governments over the past four years. This is not lost on DP officials. Yet rather than offer a compelling vision for Mongolia’s future, their campaign strategy has focused on reconfiguring the entire election system, creating more problems in the process. Two factors have combined to depress the Mongolian economy: world commodity prices and domestic […]

“Fifteen years after a drone first fired missiles in combat,” journalist Josh Smith recently wrote from Afghanistan, “the U.S. military’s drone program has expanded far beyond specific strikes to become an everyday part of the war machine.” Important as this is, it is only a first step in a much bigger process. As a report co-authored in January 2014 by Robert Work and Shawn Brimley put it, “a move to an entirely new war-fighting regime in which unmanned and autonomous systems play central roles” has begun. Where this ultimately will lead is unclear. Work, who went to become the deputy […]

Last week, a Turkish energy firm signed a $4.2 billion deal for the construction of seven natural gas power plants in Iran, the largest investment deal in Iran since international sanctions over its nuclear program were lifted. In an email interview, Nader Habibi, the Henry J. Leir professor of economics of the Middle East in Brandeis University’s Crown Center for Middle East Studies, discussed the evolution of Turkish-Iranian ties. WPR: What were the main areas of political, economic and energy cooperation between Turkey and Iran pre-2011, and what impact did international sanctions on Iran and the Syrian conflict subsequently have […]

The current era of democratic politics in the West is marked by dysfunction. Long-standing political institutions are creaking. The establishment consensus of free trade, economic openness and liberal migration policies that has buttressed the U.S.-led postwar liberal system is quickly losing its popular legitimacy. Since the late 1980s, electoral turnout has fallen in much of Europe; the joint vote share of center-right and center-left parties is hitting all-time lows; and various populist and anti-establishment parties have filled the void with the promise of easy solutions. At a time when the European Union is heavily criticized for being run by unelected […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington during what seems like exuberant times for the Indian economy. Just days before Modi landed, New Delhi unveiled dazzling new economic figures: The headlines boasted that India now has the fastest economic growth of any of the world’s major economies. And the timing could not be better. Not only do the stellar numbers easily surpass those of perennial rival China, they also come at a time when other large economies are having trouble revving up growth. The global economy has always relied on at least one major engine pushing forward with enough […]

The Republic of Congo rarely captures global attention, but the government’s military attacks on civilians, which have raged since early April, have become impossible to ignore. On April 4, amid a five-day media blackout, the results of the March 20 presidential elections were announced. To nobody’s surprise, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso secured yet another term. Sassou, as he’s known in Congo, has held nearly uninterrupted power since 1979, through elections that are routinely marred by fraud and closed to international observers. The March vote was no different. After the results were announced, young protesters set fire to the government’s administrative headquarters […]

Last week, Hillary Clinton delivered perhaps the best political speech of her life. Over the span of nearly 40 minutes in San Diego, California, before a partisan crowd, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination proceeded to take her GOP counterpart, Donald Trump, to the proverbial woodshed. “Incoherent,” “bizarre,” “unprepared,” “temperamentally unfit,” and “thin-skinned” were just some of the words she used to describe him. She mocked his lack of foreign policy knowledge, highlighted his bigotry and misogyny, and suggested he is psychologically unstable and too “dangerous” to be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office. It was a rhetorical evisceration […]

BELGRADE, Serbia—Sixteen months after its rumbling political crisis erupted with allegations of government wire-tapping—which exposed abuses like corruption, voter fraud, the suppression of free media, and attempts to manipulate the judiciary—Macedonia remains in limbo. The country’s predicament has raised concerns that it could pull its neighbors into a new Balkan conflagration. It has also revealed the shortcomings of the European Union’s approach to the region at a time when Macedonia’s path toward EU membership is looking as precarious as ever. In an interview with WPR, Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki says that “a stable Balkans goes through a stable Macedonia. […]

Last month, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines agreed to begin coordinated patrols to improve maritime security after an increase in kidnappings at sea by the Filipino militant group Abu Sayyaf. In an email interview, Collin Koh, a research fellow at the Maritime Security Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, discussed maritime security cooperation in Southeast Asia. WPR: How extensive is maritime security cooperation among Southeast Asian nations, and what efforts are underway to expand cooperation? Collin Koh: Maritime security cooperation among Southeast Asian countries remains primarily bilateral, which makes sense since countries in the region […]

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. When NPR reporter Louisa Lim brought the iconic photograph of “Tank Man”—the young Chinese man who stood before a column of tanks on June 5, 1989, just one day after the massacre at Tiananmen Square—to the campuses of four prestigious universities in Beijing, only 15 of the 100 students she randomly interviewed could identify the picture. In her book, Lim wrote: The students I spoke to are the crème de la crème, […]

BARCELONA, Spain—The countries around the Mediterranean basin are a diverse lot, ranging from the European Union and NATO’s southernmost members to the states of the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa. One thing almost all of them share is a constant tension from the seemingly contradictory trends toward separation and integration. In the early 21st century, each trajectory has its appeal in this maritime region, but neither represents a panacea. Over time, the Mediterranean will continue to teach us about independence, interdependence and integration as parts of a natural cycle for states and societies. Traveling from the lands of […]

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Since ascending to the Saudi throne in January 2015, King Salman has launched a range of reform initiatives. One of the more radical, but least sign-posted, is a drive for greater accountability and transparency in public life. Saudi commentators believe the move is aimed in part at cutting the ground out from under the scores of critics on social media who accuse senior Saudi officials and members of the royal family of pocketing a large share of the country’s huge oil revenue. The initiative may also be intended to compensate for the absence of political reform in the […]