Domestic Politics Archive

DENPASAR, Indonesia — Since the ouster in 1998 of the Suharto regime, Indonesia’s process of democratization has made remarkable progress. The peaceful re-election of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono this year for a second five-year term served as the latest chapter, adding yet another layer of political stability to the country’s democratic advances. However, an extraordinary saga that sees the country’s independent anti-corruption commission (KPK) locked in a battle for survival against the police and the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) is an indicator of some of the difficulties the country still faces in its quest to grow into a mature democracy. […]

In a speech heralding the formation of his 37-member cabinet last month, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono lauded his new team as “credible and accountable,” and expressed confidence in its abilities. “You are the chosen ones . . . and I consider you to be capable of doing your duties as members of the Second United Indonesia Cabinet,” Yudhoyono said. However, many experts did not join in Yudhoyono’s glowing encomium, and with good reason. After Yudhoyono’s landslide re-election victory in July, many observers had expected him to seize on his overwhelming (60.9 percent) electoral mandate to surround himself with a […]

TORREÓN, Mexico — Ever since Mexico’s Felipe Calderón took office in 2006, his presidency has been irrevocably identified with one issue more than any other: security. Calderón has staked the credibility of his administration, not to mention the country’s bilateral relationship with the United States, on attacking drug runners, dismantling kidnapping syndicates, and making Mexico an overall safer country. But despite some improvements in Mexico’s institutional capacity to fight crime, Calderón’s security gamble has largely backfired. The present levels of drug-related violence are worse than ever before, and Ciudad Juárez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, has become the […]

As we near the final year of the decade that brought us 9/11, it’s worth recalling one lesson our experience on that date has etched with painful clarity: Failed states can become breeding grounds for violent extremists — with devastating consequences far beyond their borders. Before 9/11, no one could have predicted that attacks concocted in remote, impoverished Afghanistan might have such a cataclysmic impact on history. Now we know that we ignore such states at our own risk. That’s why remote and impoverished Yemen, a country undergoing what by all appearances is a slow-motion collapse, is likely to draw […]

Today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will become only the second German leader in history to give a speech to both houses of the U.S. Congress. One issue she may avoid raising is her new coalition government’s controversial commitment to remove all U.S. nuclear weapons from German soil within the next few years. By formally adopting the commitment as a core element of its platform, the German government has dramatically focused attention on what has until now been a low-key debate within NATO over whether to retain nuclear weapons as a core element of the alliance’s strategy. Although the precise number […]

Brazil has had a lot to celebrate recently. Its economy has been growing at a slow but healthy clip, thanks to prudent fiscal policies that have helped it weather the financial crisis better than many. The nation has taken on an increasingly important role in matters of regional diplomacy and has emerged as the de facto political and economic leader of Latin America. Foreign leaders as varied and diverse as U.S. President Barack Obama, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and South African President Jacob Zuma have all recently met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in efforts to strengthen […]