Domestic Politics Archive

Less than three weeks ago, Colombians saw a familiar face splashed across every news platform. The man known by his nom de guerre “Timochenko,” the leader of what used to be Colombia’s largest guerilla group, which fought government forces for more than half a century, was formally launching his campaign for the presidency. As the head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC by its Spanish acronym, Rodrigo Londono had commanded thousands of men and women in a campaign for a radical Marxist revolution. But Londono also guided the militia to a peace deal in 2016, vowing […]

When he was British prime minister, David Cameron promised that his country would become China’s “best partner” in the West. His recent decision to accept a leadership role in a new joint Sino-British investment fund—part of China’s ambitious Belt and Road development initiative, no less—shows that, even after his retirement from frontline politics, Cameron is still dedicated to making good on that commitment. Last month, as part of his new job, he had a personal meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where he expressed hope for a new “golden era” of U.K.-China relations, echoing what he said when […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about national drug policies in various countries around the world. On Jan. 18, authorities in Sri Lanka destroyed $108 million worth of cocaine seized from a single shipment in the port of Colombo, which is a growing hub for international drug trafficking. While Sri Lanka does not appear to be a final destination for many of the drugs transiting the country, drug abuse has spiked in recent years, prompting the government to launch ambitious measures aimed at mitigating, and possibly eliminating, drug use by 2020. In an email interview, Sunimalee […]

In January 2017, under pressure from other West African leaders and much of his own population, Gambia’s longtime dictator, Yahya Jammeh, flew into exile in Equatorial Guinea. His successor, Adama Barrow—the winner of an election whose results Jammeh at first respected, and then disavowed—promised to pursue accountability for crimes committed during Jammeh’s more than 22-year tenure. So far, Barrow’s administration has had little luck concerning Jammeh himself, whose hosts in Equatorial Guinea are refusing to extradite him. Nevertheless, authorities recently arrested several of Jammeh’s top former associates, holding out the possibility of some justice. But at the same time, some […]

BERLIN—Germany is getting another grand coalition. At least, that’s what the country’s political leaders hope is about to happen. After a bruising round of negotiations that went days over deadline, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, or CDU, struck a deal last week with the center-left Social Democrats, the SPD, to extend the coalition that has governed Germany for the past four years. SPD members could still scuttle the deal, though. The 443,000 members have final say over whether the party will enter the agreement, with the results of their vote by mail set to be released in early March. The […]

Costa Ricans headed to the polls last Sunday amid an unusually heated campaign that few had foreseen and even fewer dared to predict. Following the Feb. 4 vote, Fabricio Alvarado of the conservative National Restoration Party and Carlos Alvarado of the leftist Citizens’ Action Party, or PAC, which has been in power since 2014, are headed to a second round on April 1. No presidential candidate came close to securing the 40 percent share of the vote required to avoid a runoff, underscoring the increasingly fragmented political environment in what has been Central America’s most stable democracy. The two Alvarados […]

Michel Thierry Atangana Abega spent 17 years in detention in Cameroon, locked in a tiny underground cell. He was alone for nearly all that time, denied access to lawyers and doctors and dependent on charity to supplement meager, state-issued rations. His primary connection to the outside world came from a radio that carried local stations and, sometimes, Radio France Internationale and the BBC. Born in Cameroon in 1964, Atangana studied in France and became a naturalized French citizen in 1988. He embarked on a career as a financial engineer and, in 1994, traveled back to Cameroon to develop road projects. […]

In the end, the result was little surprise. On Feb. 4, Nicos Anastasiades won a second term as president of the Republic of Cyprus. Although the margin of victory was perhaps a bit closer than many predicted—he won by 56 percent in a runoff against Stavros Malas, an independent backed by the Greek Cypriot communist party, known as AKEL—polls had shown Anastasiades with a comfortable lead for many months. Now that the elections are over, attention inevitably turns to the long-running efforts to reunify the ethnically split Mediterranean island. Since violence first flared up between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities […]

The contentious relationship between Turkey and the West hit a little-noticed but significant milestone this week, when the Dutch government announced it was formally downgrading diplomatic ties and officially withdrawing its ambassador from Ankara. Turkey and the Netherlands remain NATO allies, and diplomatic relations continue at the level of charges d’affaires. While not garnering the attention of the escalating confrontation between Turkey and NATO in Syria, the Dutch move is an important marker of Turkey’s continuing drift away from the West under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The decision was also unexpected because Turkey and the Netherlands had been in talks […]

BELGRADE, Serbia—Is China building a Trojan horse in a divided Europe? The diplomatic initiative between China and 16 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, known as the 16+1, has become more controversial since its launch in 2012 at a summit in Poland. Critics worry that it may undermine the European Union’s unified approach to Beijing, weaken transparency in economic and diplomatic engagement, and give a secretive regime with an increasingly muscular foreign policy a foothold in Europe. The 16 European countries are all ex-communist states, and all but five are EU members. In January, Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, the EU’s ambassador […]

Editor’s Note: In July 2019, this story received an Honorable Mention by the National Press Club for the Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence, which recognizes excellence in reporting on diplomatic and foreign policy issues. It is also 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. For 15 years, El Salvador’s zero-tolerance approach to gangs—known as mano dura, or iron fist—has resulted in devastating violence while failing to address the root causes of the crimes it’s supposed to eliminate. Yet this approach to dealing with gangs […]

Based on public polling, voter trends and the continued appeal of populist outsiders from Washington to Warsaw, it’s abundantly clear that there’s an erosion of competence and confidence in governments. It’s a global phenomenon, and U.S. President Donald Trump is a symptom, not the cause, of the slow, steady decline in the capacity of formal public institutions to make wise policies and implement them. In this age of uncertainty, however, civil society organizations have proven more able and willing to fill some of the gaps. While it is true that they lack the legitimacy of elected officials, and cannot actually […]

In early December, four new bills were introduced in the Australian Parliament that together represent the most sweeping proposed changes to the country’s national security laws in decades. In supporting their passage, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull referenced Soviet spying in Australia decades ago. “The threat we face today is greater than when Soviet agents penetrated the federal government during World War II and the early years of the Cold War,” he warned. The four bills have all been submitted for review to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which is expected to report its recommendations and any […]

On Jan. 22, a court in the Central African Republic convicted and sentenced a former warlord and leader of the anti-Balaka militia, Rodrigue Ngaibona, to life in prison. Human rights groups described it as a first in the war-torn nation and a “decisive first step” in delivering justice for crimes committed during the violence that has gripped the country for the past five years. In an email interview, Elise Keppler, the associate director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, and Lewis Mudge, a senior researcher in the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch focusing on the Central […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. On Jan. 15, the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Philippines revoked the media license for Rappler, an online, independent media outlet that had gained prominence for its critical reporting and investigative work. The decision has provoked a backlash from the media in the Philippines, which has been under increasing assault from the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, the populist leader who was elected in 2016. In an email interview, Daniel Bastard, the director of Reporters Without Borders’ Asia-Pacific […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Omar H. Rahman, discuss the Trump administration’s new National Defense Strategy, which declares that “inter-state competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern of U.S. national security.” For the Report, Peter Gill talks with Peter Dörrie about Nepal’s Muslim minority, which remains marginalized despite the country’s recent progress in promoting religious pluralism. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get some of our uncompromising analysis delivered […]

Last month, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull traveled to Japan for what has become an annual summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, highlighting the sustained growth of strategic relations between Tokyo and Canberra. During the visit, both sides agreed on the importance of working together in the Indo-Pacific and combining their shared interests in the rule of law and the freedom of navigation—a signal toward China, with its increasingly aggressive claims in the South China Sea, and the United States, at a time when the Trump administration has raised unfamiliar questions about America’s position in Asia. In a joint […]