Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on income inequality and poverty reduction in various countries around the world. Indonesian President Joko Widodo recently pledged that his administration would focus on reducing economic disparities in 2017, and he called on his ministers to accelerate the implementation of the government’s poverty-eradication programs. In an email interview, Matthew Wai-Poi, a senior economist at the World Bank, discusses inequality in Indonesia. WPR: What is the rate of income inequality in Indonesia, what are the latest trends in terms of widening or lessening inequality, and what are the main factors […]

Last month, the Indian government approved plans to move forward with talks for a free trade agreement with Peru, which would be India’s first free trade agreement in Latin America. In an email interview, Hari Seshasayee, a Latin America analyst at the Confederation of Indian Industry, discusses India’s ties across Latin America. WPR: Who are India’s main partners in Latin America, and what are the main areas of cooperation? Hari Seshasayee: India and Latin America cooperate in six main areas: energy, mining, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, information technology and agriculture. Three of these sectors-energy, mining and agriculture-are focused primarily on commodities. Venezuela, […]

Kenya’s most prominent opposition leader, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, will run again in his fourth presidential election this August. Another loss could cost him the confidence of his base, the Luo people, who for five decades have placed high hopes in him and his late father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, to break the ethnic monopoly on Kenya’s presidency, which has rotated between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin people. But an Odinga loss, whether by a close margin or because of perceived voting irregularities that have plagued earlier contests, could ignite the kind of ethnic violence seen after the 2007 election and […]

Are Antonio Guterres and Nikki Haley set to be New York’s new power couple? The future of the United Nations may rest on the duo’s personal and political chemistry. Guterres has only been U.N. secretary-general since the start of the year, and Haley began work as U.S. representative to the U.N. last week. But diplomats are watching both of them like hawks—and like what they see so far. Guterres is a bundle of energy, intent on energizing the U.N. Secretariat after an era of enforced lethargy under Ban Ki-moon. Haley is a voice of calm, signaling to her foreign counterparts […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about workers’ rights in various countries around the world. Last year, the International Trade Union Confederation gave Uruguay a top rating of 1 on its scale from 1 to 5, indicating that workers’ rights are infrequently violated. Uruguay is the only country in Latin America to receive the organization’s highest rating possible. In an email interview, Adriana Cassoni, a researcher at the Universidad OTR Uruguay, discusses worker’s rights in Uruguay. WPR: How robust are protections for workers in Uruguay with regard to the right to organize, both in law […]

The ongoing uncertainty over Brexit has raised many questions in Europe, starting with when negotiations between the European Union and the U.K. will even begin. But beyond the specifics of the negotiations, there is uncertainty over what Brexit will mean for European defense policy, a topic that has become all the more important now that U.S. President Donald Trump, who has questioned the United States’ commitment to NATO, is in office. In the wake of Brexit, officials in Brussels have called for stronger defense integration across the bloc, floated renewed plans for a permanent EU military headquarters, and proposed more […]

In this week’s episode, the first of two special editions of Trend Lines, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, take a detailed look at former President Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy by examining some of his successes and failures over his eight years in office. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. Listeners of the Trend Lines podcast who […]

The Trump administration has signaled that it is likely to scale back traditional U.S. development assistance programs in sub-Saharan Africa and favor more commercial engagement with the continent. That shift was evident in a four-page list of questions distributed to the State Department last month before Donald Trump’s inauguration. The questions relayed skepticism from the Trump transition team about some U.S. aid programs and security policies in Africa, while asking, for example, “How does U.S. business compete with other nations in Africa? Are we losing out to the Chinese?” Paradoxically, such a shift could be healthy for America’s relationship with […]

No matter whether President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking entry to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries is called a “temporary suspension” or, as Trump himself labeled it, a “ban,” it has caused furor both inside the United States and abroad. Even putting aside the morality of the policy, its hard-to-understand inclusion of some predominantly Muslim nations but not others, and the bizarre way it was developed and rolled out, it is having a major effect on America’s global security, much of it negative. While the entry ban might be good domestic politics for Trump, it defies the time-tested […]

Last week, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ top official in the Gaza Strip, visited Egypt for the first time since 2013, when Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-aligned former president, was ousted in a coup. Haniyeh met with security officials in Cairo, including the head of national intelligence, Khaled Fawzy, to discuss the ongoing blockade of Gaza and other economic issues in the Hamas-controlled territory, as well as Hamas’ ties with its Palestinian rival, Fatah. Both Haniyeh and Egyptian state media called his visit “successful.” After leaving Cairo, Haniyeh returned to Gaza after five months abroad in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Back in […]

Last week, when tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Pena Nieto, boiled over, Latin American leaders followed the news with great interest. As they strategized about the way forward under the new U.S. administration, the signals from Washington confirmed their fears that the Trump administration will unleash new headwinds for a region where many countries are facing mounting difficulties. The spectacle of watching a fellow Latin American nation berated and, in many people’s opinion, insulted by the man in the White House produced a wave of diplomatic reactions. But more than anything, it spurred a […]

After a spate of kidnappings and renewed clashes with the Philippines’ armed forces over the past year, the Islamist militants of Abu Sayyaf have forged a reputation as one of Southeast Asia’s most radical and brutal jihadi groups. The high-profile beheadings in 2016 of two Canadian hostages has focused global attention on the remote, impoverished and underdeveloped region of the southern Philippines where Abu Sayyaf operates. The violence has heightened the sense of urgency to find a solution to the long-running insurgency and placed an intense spotlight on President Rodrigo Duterte’s strategy. So far, Duterte’s comments on Abu Sayyaf have, […]

When Barack Obama became president of the United States in 2009, few would have guessed that he would be followed by an administration touting nationalism and protectionism. Yet eight years later, with Donald Trump as president, the United States appears to be abandoning Obama’s vision of America as a global partner and the leader of the liberal international order. What happened? World Politics Review has compiled 24 articles that trace Obama’s foreign policy legacy and what it means for the Trump era. The following 24 articles are free to nonsubscribers until Feb. 16. Where It All Began Sworn in during […]

Is the United States ripe for a Color Revolution? Is it already in the midst of one? If so, who are the democratic revolutionaries and who the illegitimate usurpers? Back in September, when I wrote about eroding faith in government undermining political legitimacy in the U.S., I said that a broader unraveling was unlikely. At the time, police killings of black Americans had triggered protests in many cities across the country, but those demonstrations had remained largely peaceful. The demonstrations that sprung up spontaneously over the weekend at a number of American airports to protest President Donald Trump’s entry ban […]

The massacre at a Quebec City mosque on Sunday has taken a backseat to a news cycle dominated on the other side of the border by the turbulent start of Donald Trump’s presidency. The shooting, which killed six worshippers and injured 19 more, followed the implementation of Trump’s executive order to bar individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. In response to Trump’s travel ban, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to social media on Saturday to declare that Canada’s arms were open to any rejected refugees unable to enter the United States. The following evening, 27-year-old Alexandre […]

Last month, Saudi Arabia signed a military cooperation agreement with Mauritania that calls for joint training, logistical exchanges and improved cooperation. In an email interview, Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem, a professor of political science at the University of Nouakchott, discusses Mauritania’s relations with Saudi Arabia. WPR: How extensive are relations between Mauritania and Saudi Arabia, and what are the main areas of cooperation? Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem: Diplomatic ties between Mauritania and Saudi Arabia are historically good, but not as solid as Mauritania would like. Saudi Arabia, one of the wealthiest countries in the Arab world, has never seriously supported […]