Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Talks are ongoing to form a governing coalition in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, after no party gained an outright majority in parliamentary elections held Sept. 30. The Kurdistan Democratic Party won 45 out of 111 seats in the local Parliament, while its junior coalition partner, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, came in second with 21 seats. Yet opposition parties have rejected the results, claiming violations in the electoral process. In an interview with WPR, Renad Mansour, a research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House and a visiting fellow at the Institute of Regional […]

Will the world’s middle powers save the liberal international system, or conspire to sink it? For the past decade, believers in international cooperation and multilateral institutions have invested a lot of hope in states like Brazil, India and South Korea. Such powers are big enough to play a major part in managing global order, the optimists argue. But unlike China and the U.S., they are not so big that they can disregard international rules and arrangements altogether. The not-quite-superpowers gained new diplomatic clout in 2008, when the U.S. and its European allies turned to the Group of 20 countries to […]

Amid worsening ties between Turkey and Saudi Arabia over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Turkey’s previous tensions with the United States, which only months ago looked intractable, appear to be easing. This upswing reflects Turkey’s longstanding institutional comfort, if not always strategic preference, for its Western ties, and, more immediately, a certain tactical play against its rival in Riyadh. But Turkey’s Western moorings are hardly secure—a position that still looks increasingly out of step for a Turkish government with aspirations for regional and even global leadership. As new details continue to emerge about Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi […]

Sri Lanka’s government was thrown into chaos last week when President Maithripala Sirisena abruptly fired his prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe. In his place, Sirisena appointed his once-bitter rival, Mahinda Rajapaksa, a controversial former president who narrowly lost his re-election bid to Sirisena in 2015. Wickremesinghe refused to yield, however, claiming majority support from his fellow lawmakers, prompting Sirisena to suspend the 225-member Parliament. The tense standoff appeared headed toward a denouement on Thursday, when Rajapaksa said Parliament would reconvene next week. But the president’s office has remained noncommittal, prompting a majority of lawmakers to submit a joint petition to the […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. “I came only to confirm to people that I am for peace. The past is gone. We have opened a new chapter for peace and unity.” That was Riek Machar, South Sudan’s opposition leader and former vice president, who returned to the war-torn country Wednesday after more than two years away. His upbeat tone was matched by President Salva Kiir, who similarly described the event as a turning point in a civil war that’s nearly five years old and, […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Elliot Waldman, discuss why Asia’s two main economic rivals, China and Japan, are now trying to improve their ties. For the Report, Obi Anyadike talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about his reporting from Nigeria, where in the past six months, an estimated 600 Nigerian soldiers have been killed in the fight against Boko Haram. Soldiers are poorly equipped and overstretched, and their morale is dangerously low. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign […]

Already two months underway, Indonesia’s long presidential campaign is shaping up to be deceptively similar to its divisive race four years ago, which was marred by political smears and religious tensions. Incumbent President Joko Widodo, widely known as Jokowi, finds himself facing off for the second time against Prabowo Subianto, a former army general, but with identity politics and religion crowding other issues out of political debate in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country. Both candidates have secured themselves within Islamist camps, to be safe from accusations of impiety. But in doing so, they have aligned themselves with violators of […]

A resurgent form of populism is attempting to divide the world between an ethnically or racially defined class of non-elites, framed as ethically superior, and a decadent, globalizing elite. The result could be conflicts between countries or even within borders. A powerful wave of populism is sweeping the world, enveloping not only places like Latin America, where it has long held sway, but also Europe, North America and parts of Asia. Few experts saw this coming, and no one knows what its ultimate repercussions will be. But if historical patterns hold, this kind of populism, fueled by strident nationalism, may […]

The threat of new water wars grows across the globe. Can we resolve the causes of water conflicts before it’s too late? Although alarmist headlines often announce imminent water wars over scarce resources, the truth is that cooperation over shared waterways, particularly rivers, is historically more common than conflict. In fact, even among bitter enemies, the historical record shows that water conflicts around the world do get resolved, even to the point that international cooperation often increases during droughts. However, common causes of water conflicts remain a concern. Unilateral actions to construct a dam or river diversion in the absence […]

Last Friday, the people of Sri Lanka got shocking news. President Maithripala Sirisena had abruptly fired the country’s prime minister—a move explicitly banned by the constitution. Confusing matters even more, Sirisena named his most bitter rival as the new prime minister, to step in for the man who had been his key ally in winning the presidency. Sri Lankans watched as the sacked prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was replaced by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who appeared on television being sworn in as the head of the new government. But Wickremesinghe refused to accept Sirisena’s move amid cries that a constitutional […]

The Central African nation of Gabon has limited experience with presidential transfers of power. In the nearly 60 years since it attained independence, only three men have ever held the top job. The first president, Leon Mba, died in office in 1967. His successor, Omar Bongo, proved himself to be an archetypal African “strongman,” holding the post for more than four decades and becoming the continent’s longest-serving leader before he, too, died in office in 2009. The current president is Omar Bongo’s son, Ali Bongo, who was sworn in several months after his father died following an election that sparked […]

The U.S. Treasury Department recently designated a network of 22 Iranian businesses as supporters of terrorism, including several banks and major commodities companies, imposing sanctions on them for their alleged financial ties to a powerful Iranian militia. The goal was to expose and discredit the paramilitary group they are said to finance, known as the Basij, which is linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and, according to the Treasury Department, has recruited child soldiers sent to fight in Syria to support the Assad regime. Yet like other forms of financial pressure from the Trump administration, these sanctions likely won’t […]