Domestic Politics Archive

After six days of deliberation, a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, last week declared Bolivia’s former president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and defense minister, Carlos Sanchez Berzain, guilty under U.S. law of extrajudicial killings committed in Bolivia 15 years ago. Damages of $10 million were awarded to the case’s eight plaintiffs, who all lost family members during the 2003 security crackdown on protests in Bolivia over a proposed natural gas pipeline running to Chile. Both Sanchez de Lozada and Sanchez Berzain have been living in exile in the United States since they fled Bolivia after the violence in what became […]

When the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis barreled into a sleepy coastal town in southern Bangladesh last August, the prime minister in Dhaka pledged that her impoverished country would go without food if that was what it took to help the Rohingya fleeing violence from the army in Myanmar. Almost nine months later, that welcome is starting to wear thin as the exodus far exceeds past influxes of Rohingya refugees and settles into a prolonged, seemingly intractable situation, taxing one of the world’s poorest and most densely populated countries. Bangladesh, no stranger to the Myanmar military’s paroxysms of ethno-nationalist violence, has […]

Population growth in the Middle East has created a variety of challenges for governments, but especially how to integrate so many young people into the economy. Failing to come up with a solution could have severe ramifications, though. A baby boom in Egypt since 2011 has added 11 million people to a population that is now approaching 100 million, according to Bloomberg. With a quarter of Egyptians between the ages of 18 and 29 unemployed, and an increasing number of young people entering a labor market that is ill-equipped to absorb them, many experts are raising concerns. Egypt isn’t alone. […]

On April 5, the French government announced it would provide about $1.35 billion over the next five years in state-backed credit and financing from the European Union to the country’s organic agriculture sector. The announcement was part of French President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to reform France’s agricultural sector—including a pledge in February to invest more than $6 billion to make the industry more environmentally friendly, among other things—and follows signals from Macron that he would consider changes to the EU’s Common Agricultural policy, or CAP. For years, French farmers have been among the main beneficiaries of the CAP, which provides […]

After a relatively quiet first year in the White House, President Donald Trump is delivering on his campaign promises to get tough on trade, especially with China. In 2017, the Trump administration launched a number of investigations into foreign trade practices but took little action beyond abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the Obama administration had negotiated with 11 Pacific Rim countries. Trump also threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement if Canada and Mexico did not bow to his demands to renegotiate the deal. NAFTA talks are still ongoing. But then, in just the first few months […]

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 what Hungary’s upcoming election reveals about the state of democracy in Europe, and the growing risks of a trade war between the United States and China. For the Report, Tracy Brown Hamilton talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about why a national debate over racial discrimination in the Netherlands is becoming increasingly acrimonious. 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 […]

A court in Burkina Faso was due to resume hearings this morning in a trial against the alleged perpetrators of a short-lived coup nearly three years ago that came close to derailing the West African nation’s transition away from quasi-authoritarian rule. In September 2015, members of the country’s presidential guard stormed a Cabinet meeting in the capital, Ouagadougou, taking the country’s acting president, Michel Kafando, hostage along with the acting prime minister and several other high-ranking officials. Kafando’s transitional government had been installed after a popular uprising in October 2014 forced the resignation of Blaise Compaore, who served as president […]

On April 1, Costa Ricans returned to the polls to elect a new president in a runoff that polling suggested would be one of the closest races in their country’s history. Numerous analysts described the election as a battle between progressive and conservative values, as evangelicals are becoming more prominent politically in Costa Rica. In the end, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, a novelist and former labor minister from the center-left Citizens’ Action Party, defied the pre-election predictions to soundly defeat Fabricio Alvarado Munoz, an evangelical singer and pastor, by more than 20 points. It wasn’t an easy road to victory for […]

Late last month, Vietnam suspended ongoing work on a major oil drilling project in disputed waters between it and China in the South China Sea, reportedly under Chinese pressure. The incident revealed the ongoing challenge Vietnam faces in protecting its interests in the vital waterway as Beijing continues to aggressively assert its maritime claims. Vietnam is no stranger to this kind of Chinese behavior in the South China Sea. For Hanoi, the disputes are just part of a wider, centuries-old problem of managing ties with its giant northern neighbor, which occupied it for nearly a millennia and with which it […]

In the current global battle between liberal democracy and autocracy, few countries have seen democracy lose ground more steadily than Hungary. It is there that hopes for the unstoppable expansion of democracy in the aftermath of the Cold War have been most decisively dashed by the rise of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his populist party, Fidesz. They have declared open war on a Western-style, democratic society, which is why the world will be watching when Hungarians go to the polls this Sunday. Ever since their surprise victory in 2010, Orban and his acolytes have engaged in an aggressive campaign […]

Could Sunday’s general election in Hungary bring a shocking end to divisive Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s rule, reshaping politics in Central Europe? However unlikely, that scenario no longer looks entirely impossible. Orban has previously appeared unstoppable as he set about building what he calls an “illiberal state.” His government, facing increasing criticism over corruption, is accused of overseeing the destruction of independent institutions while peddling xenophobia and dog-whistle anti-Semitism. Yet for many inside and outside Hungary, Orban’s unyielding positions—against immigration and alleged “interference” in national affairs by unelected bodies, whether the European Union or international organizations—have made him a standard-bearer […]

On April 15, Montenegrins will go to the polls to elect a new president, but the likely winner will not be a new face. The country’s governing Democratic Party of Socialists, or DPS, nominated Milo Djukanovic, who has governed Montenegro as president or prime minister for much of the past three decades and oversaw the tiny Balkan state’s path to accession to NATO last year. Djukanovic, who retired as prime minister in late 2016, is seen as the leading promoter of Montenegro’s ambitions to join the European Union and position itself closer to Brussels and Washington. But pro-Russian forces in […]

AMSTERDAM—Every second Saturday in November, according to Dutch folklore, Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete, arrives in the Netherlands, having traveled by steamboat with Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, from their home in Spain. The duo remain in the Netherlands until Dec. 5, the name day of Saint Nicholas—a major Dutch holiday similar to Christmas elsewhere. The beloved Zwarte Piet character is said to be the Moorish assistant of Sinterklaas, and he is customarily depicted as a black man with curly black hair, clownish attire, red lipstick and hoop earrings. Listen to Tracy Brown Hamilton discuss this article on […]

The Maldives, a country known far more as a honeymoon hotspot in the Indian Ocean than as a hub of political crisis, is back to “business as usual,” according to its president, Abdulla Yameen, following the lifting of a 45-day state of emergency on March 22. But with one former president forced into exile, another joining two Supreme Court justices in indefinite detention, and 31 of 45 opposition lawmakers still either in jail or facing trial, it looks like anything but that. After weeks of unrest, the government of the Maldives has bought the current calm with the last dregs […]

Measures announced last month at China’s 13th National People’s Congress to strengthen the leadership role of the Chinese Communist Party and remove term limits for President Xi Jinping have raised fears about the increasingly authoritarian trajectory of Chinese politics. However, given the country’s immense economic and governance challenges and the realities of its political system, authorities have little realistic alternative than to rely on the Communist Party’s leadership to oversee difficult structural changes. While repression may well increase and the possibility of policy misjudgment cannot be ruled out, boosting the party’s influence also increases the chance that Beijing will fulfill […]