During the final stages of Turkey’s elections, many observers pointed to distant moments from the country’s history to explain its contemporary political conflicts. One more recent event was particularly crucial to reinforcing the social polarization tearing at Turkish society today: the military coup of September 1980.
Is Washington’s post-Cold War “unipolar moment” over? Some claim that multipolarity has been with us for some time. Others are not so sure, pointing to the United States’ continued economic and military dominance. But even if the U.S. remains the world’s predominant power, it may still well exist in a multipolar world.
While the exodus of millions of Venezuelans from their homeland to countries across the Western Hemisphere has attracted considerable attention in recent years, another equally significant migratory pattern in Central America has been taking place with less notice: the roughly 200,000 Nicaraguans who have fled to Costa Rica.
The final communique of last weekend’s G-7 summit left no doubt that the West views Russia as a malign global player and enemy, and considers China to be a competitor, rival and potential threat. That is the position among the governments and leaders of the world’s richest democracies. But what about the world’s population at large?
At a recent conference of the U.K.’s self-described National Conservatives, senior Tory MPs and a Cabinet minister espoused views that align with those of European far-right parties. It’s an indication of how strong these factions, which just a decade ago remained at the outer fringes of the Conservative Party, have now become.
The International Committee of the Red Cross launched an initiative this spring to encourage players of first-person shooter video games to follow the rules of war, which serves their wider agenda of strengthening civil society’s commitment to the laws of armed conflict. The approach, though, has not been without controversy.
Last week, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso used his constitutional authority to dissolve Congress, which had been trying to impeach him, and rule by decree until new elections are held for both the president and legislature. The move paralleled last year’s events in Peru, but the region’s response has been remarkably different.
The lapsing of Title 42, a pandemic-era border control measure, offers an opportunity to reconsider U.S. immigration policy more broadly. Rather than pointing to the need for tighter restrictions, it highlights why the U.S. should adopt an “open door” immigration policy, making it easy for anyone who wishes to enter the U.S. to do so.
Turkey’s election results came as a disappointment not only to Turkish voters who wanted to bring an end to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 20 years of increasingly autocratic rule. They also dashed the hopes of many outside observers that Turkey would become one of the countries where the global drift to autocracy begins to reverse.
The aftermath of Romania’s post-communist transition, particularly the struggle to overcome corruption, left a toxic legacy that hampers Bucharest’s ability to exert influence over EU decision-making to this day. But Romania’s reluctance to be proactive in policy debates within both the EU and NATO has now become problematic.
At the annual G-7 summit this week, Western leaders have to decide what vision of global leadership they want to project. Beyond showing unity in opposition to Russia’s war on Ukraine and China’s military and economic assertiveness, it’s unclear what the G-7 will say about resolving the issues currently plaguing non-Western states.
Two of today’s biggest stories in the Western Hemisphere are eliciting starkly different responses: action on migration and inaction on Venezuela’s political and economic crises. Yet, with over 7 million Venezuelans having fled the country, it’s impossible to deal with the first challenge without taking the second more seriously.
The Biden administration’s policy approach to the Middle East has come under recent criticism, and its Indo-Pacific policy and its role in Africa are up for debate. But a key region seems to be flying under the radar: Latin America. What is U.S. policy toward its own neighborhood? Does the U.S. even have a policy toward the region?
Chileans have once again dealt President Gabriel Boric a major setback, handing an overwhelming victory to the right-wing opposition in a vote for a new Constitutional Council. The outcome all but ensures that Chile’s next constitution will fail to bring about the progressive changes Boric and his supporters had envisioned.
The commanders of armed groups in African countries are often portrayed as erratic tyrants with little understanding of the world—in both Hollywood films and in news coverage. Yet as clashes in Sudan escalate into civil war, it is becoming increasingly clear that the geopolitical sophistication of such warlords has been underestimated.
This week, Title 42—the pandemic-era measure curtailing immigration across the U.S. southern border—is expiring. But a new rash of efforts to regulate the flow of asylum-seekers compromises U.S. obligations under both domestic and international law, potentially putting U.S. civil servants implementing these policies at legal risk.
Over the past two decades, Chile has been a place where businesses can operate in a regulatory environment shaped by steady and fair rules, while Argentina’s extensive regulations on prices, taxes and capital controls have made business difficult. However, when it comes to the lithium industry, that narrative has just been flipped.