Domestic Politics Archive

Last week, at least 32 people were killed amid violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the town of Meiktila in central Myanmar, according to the state news media. It took several days for the military to restore calm. Jason Paul Abbott, Aung San Suu Kyi endowed chair and director at the University of Louisville’s Center for Asian Democracy, told Trend Lines that the events, in particular the military’s lack of haste in intervening to halt the violence, are indicative of the country’s broader power struggle over the ongoing reform process. Myanmar is currently undergoing a transition to civilian government after […]

AMMAN, Jordan — Two years after the start of the Arab Spring, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has launched what he says is a third way. His approach, the king maintains, will bring peaceful democratic change, empowering the people and modernizing the country, while averting chaos and preventing extremist parties from emerging victorious. It’s a tall order, and one that has met with doubt among many skeptics and critics. So far, the Arab uprisings have given people of all political persuasions a reason to feel anxious. Arab liberals have not made any significant gains. Islamist groups, the principal winners until now, […]

A year after an uprising toppled Yemen’s then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh, interim President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi is struggling to consolidate state authority over a country in which 70 percent of the population resides in tribal or rural areas. In an email interview, Khaled Fattah, a guest lecturer at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden and an expert on Yemen’s state-tribe relations, explained the enduring dynamics of Yemen’s tribal politics and how they are likely to influence the course of the country’s transition. WPR: What role did Yemen’s tribes play in the process leading to […]

On Friday, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced that his government would resign because of a dispute with Hezbollah, the Shiite militia that dominates the Lebanese cabinet. Hezbollah had opposed extending the term of Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi, who heads the Lebanese Internal Security Forces and is, like Mikati, a Sunni Muslim. But Elias Muhanna, assistant professor of comparative literature and Middle East studies at Brown University and author of the Qifa Nabki blog about Lebanon, told Trend Lines that Mikati also had other reasons to resign. “There is a lot of polarization in this cabinet, which is typical for […]

On March 11, police in Malawi arrested 11 politicians on charges of plotting a coup last year after the death of then-President Bingu wa Mutharika that would have prevented his successor, then-Vice President Joyce Banda, from assuming the presidency. In an email interview, Danielle Resnick, a political scientist at United Nations University specializing in the political economy of development and sub-Saharan Africa, described Malawi’s political landscape and Banda’s presidency to date. WPR: What have been the major milestones of Joyce Banda’s presidency to date? Danielle Resnick: Banda’s main achievement has been to re-establish good relations with the international donor community. […]

Late last month, video surfaced of a man in South Africa being dragged behind a police van, sparking an outcry about the state of the country’s police force. In an email interview, Andrew Faull, a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Criminology who has written extensively on public policing in South Africa, explained how South Africans view the country’s police, and the police force’s evolution since the apartheid era. WPR: How are South Africa’s police regarded in terms of their efficacy and accountability? Andrew Faull: Data on perceptions of police in South Africa appear at times contradictory […]

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, has called for a truce with Turkey, with which the Kurdish rebel group has fought for 30 years. In a letter that was read earlier today to crowds gathered for the Kurdish New Year celebrations in southern Turkey, the PKK chief called for a cease-fire and for the removal of PKK fighters from the country. While past truces have been called and then abandoned, the announcement is being greeted with optimism in some quarters. “This is the first time in a long time that there is a serious […]

During Mexico’s 2012 presidential election, opponents of then-candidate Enrique Peña Nieto warned that the young governor’s election would spell the return of the old-guard cronyism of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Yet as president, Peña Nieto has taken nearly the opposite course, assembling a cabinet of young PRI technocrats and members of rival parties. And in recent weeks he has mustered his centrist government into mounting an assault against Mexico’s entrenched monopolies. In February, Peña Nieto signed into law a bill to give the state more control over the hiring and firing of teachers. Days later, Elba Esther Gordillo, the […]

Hot on the heels of January’s record-shattering air pollution levels in Beijing, China’s commercial capital of Shanghai has witnessed its own environmental crisis, with thousands of dead pigs turning up in the city’s waterways. China’s major cities have long been notorious for their high levels of air and water pollution, but such visible signs of threats to human health are thrusting environmental hazards into the public eye like never before. The Chinese government has taken some steps to address public concern at these hazards, but if either history or the experience of other countries is any guide, Beijing needs to […]

Two years after the end of Côte d’Ivoire’s post-election crisis, which saw more than 3,000 people killed, much uncertainty remains over the direction the country will take. The crisis, triggered by former President Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to leave office after losing the November 2010 presidential election to current President Alassane Ouattara, was itself the last chapter of a decade-long conflict that had profoundly divided the country and its people. Though some steps toward normalization have been taken, they have not led to a broader national reconciliation. On one hand, Ouattara has already achieved a great deal, restarting the Ivorian economy […]

Honduras is the homicide capital of the world (.pdf). This is due in part to widespread and growing gang violence, but recently there have been reports that Honduran police themselves are organizing death squads. “Organized crime linked to drug trafficking is rampant, and it would appear that the Honduran police and judiciary are not just ineffective in addressing the problem, they are actually making it worse,” Alexander Main, senior associate for international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told Trend Lines in an email interview. Recent reports show the Honduran police operating “more like assassins than law […]

Perhaps it is time to start taking Hamid Karzai at his word. Every time the Afghan president criticizes the United States or constrains the operations of foreign forces in Afghanistan, U.S. officials deploy the gamut of explanations to downplay his behavior. These have ranged from the tactical (he’s trying to build up his nationalist credentials among the populace), to the pharmacological (he’s “off his meds”). Karzai’s latest bombshell, delivered during Chuck Hagel’s inaugural visit to Afghanistan as the new U.S. secretary of defense, was to suggest that the United States is colluding with the Taliban in attacks throughout the country […]

Rejecting criticisms by the United States and the European Union, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is defending recent constitutional amendments despite concerns they will undermine democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. The changes adopted earlier this week will lead to more restrictive laws on higher education and family rights, among other concerns, according to Human Rights Watch. “This is the definite end of any constitutional oversight of the activity of the parliamentary majority,” Gábor Halmai, director of the Institute of Political and International Studies at the Eotvos Lóránd Univerity in Budapest, Hungary, told Trend Lines in an email […]

With less than 100 days left until Iran holds presidential elections, the field of candidates remains surprisingly unclear. The regime is taking pains to make sure there is no repeat of the 2009 fiasco, when a strong reformist movement mounted a powerful showing and challenged the official results, threatening the stability of the Islamic Republic. This time, the regime is keeping a much tighter rein on the process and, it hopes, on the ultimate repercussions. It is all but certain that when the votes are counted after the June 14 polls close, the winner will be a conservative, loyal to […]

On March 8, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain appointed Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa to serve as deputy prime minister, a move that was widely lauded as injecting new momentum into the national dialogue process between the ruling monarchy and the opposition and sending a positive signal to a long-disheartened opposition. So far the national dialogue has moved forward with high hopes, but much of the discussion has centered on its scope, participation and logistics. The real test of success will be whether the process can resolve the crucial issues of an empowered parliament, electoral gerrymandering and […]

In the face of persistent violence in Mexico, citizens are increasingly forming vigilante groups they say are for self-defense. Estimates vary on how widespread the groups are; one recent report said such self-defense groups were active in 68 municipalities in 13 Mexican states. Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, told Trend Lines, “Basically, the police have broken down in a lot of these municipalities, and organized crime has moved in.” Yet while the groups claim to fight violence and extortion where the Mexican government can’t or won’t, there are concerns that […]

Speaking in Tehran at a forum on human rights in February 2012, Iranian Chief Justice Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani called Iran’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1948 a “mistake.” Larijani was reacting to reports by the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, on Iran’s systematic violations of the declaration. Larijani went on to deny the incidents documented in the reports and assert that the U.N.’s evidence was false. But Iran is indeed expanding its crackdown on political, religious and social freedoms in advance of the June 14 election to select a successor […]