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Last Friday, as America was focused on landmark Supreme Court rulings that made same-sex marriage legal and prevented millions of citizens from losing their health insurance, the so-called Islamic State (IS) flexed its terrorist muscles. The impact was as horrific as one might imagine. In Tunisia, a Kalashnikov-toting jihadist gunman shot and killed 39 Western tourists sunbathing on a resort beach. In Kuwait, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shiite mosque, killing 27 worshippers and wounding 227. And in France, in an attack whose motivations remain unclear but that bore all the hallmarks of IS, the head of […]

Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina announced earlier this month that he is open to running for re-election after Congress passed legislation allowing presidents to serve two consecutive terms. In an email interview, Matthew Singer, an associate professor of comparative politics at the University of Connecticut, discussed domestic politics in the Dominican Republic. WPR: What is the state of democracy consolidation in the Dominican Republic, and what are the implications for it of Congress’s recent approval of consecutive presidential terms? Matthew Singer: Term limits have an interesting history in the Dominican Republic. Immediate re-election was allowed from 1966-1996, banned in 1996, […]

In late May, at a high-level Community Party meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping cautioned that religions in China must be free from foreign influence and incorporated into socialist Chinese society. Xi’s warning appears to have its limits: It has not deterred the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, from reiterating his hopes that the embryonic dialogue between Beijing and the Holy See will continue to move forward. But the prospects of warmer ties between Beijing and the Vatican doesn’t play well in Hong Kong, where the city’s Catholic leadership has been a vocal supporter of the democracy movement in […]