Economics & Business Archive

2016’s turmoil and unpredictability carried over into 2017—a year marked by a continued backlash against refugees and migrants in Europe, deeper fault lines in the Middle East between regional rivals, and hardening nationalist attitudes from the United States to China. Here at World Politics Review, we looked for the trend lines behind the headlines, and we hope our 10 most-read articles of 2017 reflect that kind of coverage, as well as the diverse interests of our readers. The list below is based on unique page views. Where will we find the stories of 2018? 1. Why Once-Welcoming Countries in Scandinavia […]

The dust is beginning to settle after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman surprised observers with a purge of prominent members of the Saudi royal family and business community nearly two months ago. Debate continues over how much the detention of 320 key figures in Riyadh was a decisive move to stamp out corruption in Saudi society, or the culmination of a power grab that has unfolded since Mohammed bin Salman burst onto the scene when his father became king in January 2015. Either way, it is clear that policymaking authority is concentrated in one individual to a degree unprecedented in […]

Employing an adversarial tone that surprised many observers, the White House’s newly unveiled National Security Strategy described China as a “revisionist power” that “actively competes” against the United States and its allies and partners. It accused China of trying to “shift the regional balance in its favor” and “displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region.” The strategy, the first released by President Donald Trump since taking office, also declared that China seeks to shape a world “antithetical” to U.S. values and interests, and painted China’s expanding economic and diplomatic influence in a decidedly negative light, deploying terms like “extractive” […]

Earlier this month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled to Beijing and met with his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang, to discuss enhanced trade relations. Talks on a potential free trade agreement failed to advance, but they agreed to continue preliminary discussions. In an email interview, Stewart Beck, president and chief executive of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, discusses the nature of economic ties between Canada and China, the prospects for a free trade agreement in the future, and why Canada is looking to diversify its options as NAFTA’s fate remains up in the air. WRP: Canada and China are […]

When Laos’ National Assembly ratified the appointment of a new president and prime minister to lead the closed, one-party communist state in early 2016, most analysts viewed the political changes in Vientiane as signaling a shift away from its much larger and influential neighbor, China. Laos, it seemed, was making a concerted attempt to balance relations more equally with its other neighbors. Yet two years on, China’s influence in its impoverished southern neighbor has only grown. A controversial railway project funded by Beijing is moving forward, and President Xi Jinping made a high-profile state visit in November, touting Laos as […]

Public interest in offshore banks and their financial services, particularly in the Caribbean, has risen considerably after revelations in two major leaks known as the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. The increasingly common practice of the super-rich, celebrities and political figures using Caribbean countries to shelter their income from taxes at home has been a gold mine for investigative reporters. The public outcries have pushed politicians to respond, most recently and prominently with the European Union’s decision to blacklist 17 tax havens “seen as not cooperative on tax matters,” including several in the Caribbean. But the Caribbean side of […]

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 Russian President Vladimir Putin’s victory lap during his visit to Syria on Dec. 11 and the extent of Russian influence in a changing Middle East. For the Report, Stephania Corpi talks with Peter Dörrie about how the ongoing political, economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is driving a wave of outmigration into neighboring countries in South America. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines, as well as what you’ve seen on WPR, please think about supporting our […]

Despite announcing a breakthrough in their protracted negotiations over a maritime boundary in August, Australia and East Timor have yet to finalize an agreement that would allow them to move forward on the joint development of an important natural gas field. The delay is in part due to the difficulties of conducting a trilateral negotiation involving the two governments as well as private interests. In an email interview, Bec Strating, a lecturer in the department of politics and philosophy at La Trobe University in Australia focusing on Indonesia and East Timor, which is also known as Timor-Leste, explains the background […]

It’s now well understood that many governments see their cyber capabilities as a tool to influence, coerce, deter and disrupt their enemies and rivals. Societies and states today are almost totally dependent on cyberspace to communicate, conduct routine but essential transactions, store information and make critical decisions about policy matters, from the mundane to the strategic. Yet it’s hard for people without deep technical understanding of the technology—your columnist included—to know where to fit these cyber realities into familiar categories for the conduct of national security and international relations. There’s also a risk of discussing openly how to respond to […]

The lifting of international economic sanctions on Iran following the 2015 nuclear agreement opened the doors to what many observers expected to be a rush of foreign investment. Yet lingering restrictions from the United States and the decision in October by the Trump administration to decertify the Iran deal have kept some European firms at bay, while China has exploited opportunities in their absence. In an email interview, Nader Habibi, the Henry J. Leir professor of economics of the Middle East at Brandeis University’s Crown Center for Middle East Studies, discusses China’s involvement in Iran before and after the nuclear […]

In late November, after a building fire killed 19 migrant workers in a shantytown on the southern outskirts of Beijing, the city government began forcibly evicting thousands of migrants before razing entire neighborhoods to the ground. The evictions have sparked an outcry from within China and raised questions about the country’s urbanization policies. In an email interview, Mark Frazier, a professor of politics and academic director of the India China Institute at The New School in New York, explains what is driving the evictions and how they fit into China’s broader urbanization policies. WPR: Why is the Beijing city government […]

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 U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and what it means for the Middle East. For the Report, Andrew Green talks with Peter Dörrie about a pilot program in Kenya that is testing the long-term impact of a universal basic income. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines, as well as what you’ve seen on WPR, please think about supporting our work by subscribing. We’re currently offering a 25 percent […]

Little is expected from the World Trade Organization’s 11th ministerial conference next week in Argentina. U.S. President Donald Trump’s hostility to multilateral agreements is a serious impediment, and American trade officials engaged in preliminary talks in Geneva have said they do not expect, nor want, any negotiated agreements to come out of the meeting in Buenos Aires. This is despite the fact that several items on the WTO’s agenda, including e-commerce, constraints on trade-distorting agricultural policies and constraints on fishing subsidies, have been U.S. priorities in the past. By contrast, China has signaled throughout this year that it supports open […]

After President Donald Trump reluctantly signed legislation in August imposing new U.S. sanctions on Moscow for its interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia’s parliament last month drafted a bill that would try to shield Russian banks from further sanctions by obscuring their investments in the state-controlled arms industry. The United States and the European Union have imposed multiple layers of sanctions on Russia since 2014 for its actions in Ukraine. In an email interview, William Courtney, an adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corporation and former U.S. ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan, discusses the impact of Western sanctions […]

A village in Kenya is the only one in Africa known to be receiving a monthly universal basic income, or UBI, stipend. The experiment is intended to encourage countries with high poverty levels to rethink their approach to social welfare, but not everyone is convinced the UBI trial will yield the answers researchers seek. Makanga is a village like many others in rural Kenya. Farmsteads with walls made of clay and roofs of corrugated iron sit on plots separated by bush. Dusty footpaths cross fields that bear signs of the latest drought to hit East Africa—the effects of which are […]

Despite many years of effort by the United States and its NATO allies to stem opium production in Afghanistan, this year saw a record crop. Drug production is an integral component of Afghanistan’s complex and seemingly intractable problems. Not only does opium directly support the Taliban, which taxes its manufacture and transportation, it also undercuts broader attempts to stem corruption and expand the legal Afghan economy. As often happens in today’s interconnected security environment, Afghanistan’s security issues are not contained within its borders. The transportation of Afghan opium funds extremists across Central Asia and threatens governments in that part of […]

On Nov. 26, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro handed over leadership of the national oil company, PDVSA, to Manuel Quevedo, a general with no experience in the energy sector. The move comes after a series of arrests of officials within PDVSA on corruption charges, including six earlier in November. In an email interview, David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America and curator of the blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, discusses Maduro’s underlying political motivations for the moves and the military’s increasing control of Venezuela’s economy. WPR: Maduro has arrested around 50 PDVSA officials since August, […]