Domestic Politics Archive

The government’s decision to charge surviving Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with the use of a weapon of mass destruction struck many Americans as peculiar. At first glance, the Tsarnaev brothers’ bombs do not seem to match the definition or popular perception of a WMD. For decades, that term has been interpreted as referring to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, which uniquely possess the ability to kill people in numbers large enough to be considered massive. Two factors, among others, help explain the government’s decision: The charge is seen by prosecutors as relatively easy to level—and prove—compared to other possible […]

This month, the Brazilian government announced plans to employ some 6,000 Cuban doctors as part of an effort to strengthen Brazil-Cuba bilateral ties. In an email interview, John M. Kirk, a professor at Canada’s Dalhousie University who co-wrote a book on Cuban medical internationalism and is finishing a second on Cuban medical cooperation, explained the history of Cuba’s medical diplomacy and its importance to Cuba’s slowly reforming economy. WPR: What is the extent of Cuba’s medical diplomacy in terms of numbers of doctors sent abroad and the benefits Cuba receives in return? John M. Kirk: Cuba has been sending medical […]

The people of Spain are now living through the fifth year of a deep economic recession, experiencing a level of unemployment that would have seemed utterly inconceivable in the decades before the bottom fell out. Government measures and European Union prescriptions find little popular support. But despite countless protests and furious debate, the Spanish are becoming disillusioned with all the options before them. As the recession lingers and the hardships intensify, the answer increasingly is “none of the above.” For the unloved government, the apparent lack of appealing alternatives is the most tangible reason for solace. In contrast to the […]

As the British armed forces rebuild after more than a decade of sustained military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the strategic components of the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” have come under intense scrutiny. At the politico-strategic level, while London remains committed to working alongside the U.S., there is deep concern that Washington has become a less than reliable partner. Indeed, there is a widespread view among British policymakers that in spite of the casualties taken by the British in support of a failed U.S. policy, Washington now prefers Germany to Britain as its “special” European partner. Were it not for the […]

Last week, Efrain Rios Montt, the former Guatemalan dictator who ruled the country during the most violent years of its civil war, was found guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide and sentenced to 80 years in prison. Guatemalan courts only recently began prosecutions for crimes committed during the civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. Rios Montt was convicted of overseeing the massacre of some 1,771 villagers of Guatemala’s Maya Ixil indigenous group during his 1982-1983 dictatorship. And the conviction may yet be overturned. Reuters has reported that a judge who presided over earlier hearings said she could […]

The withdrawal of Kurdish militants from Turkey across the border into Iraq is highlighting the role of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in regional geopolitics ahead of KRG elections planned for September. In an email interview, Michael M. Gunter, a professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University who focuses on Kurdish issues, discussed the state of internal Kurdish politics. WPR: What is the political landscape in Iraqi Kurdistan ahead of the September elections? Michael M. Gunter: To begin with, I would not assume that the September elections will be held as scheduled. These elections might again be postponed, as […]

Over the past decade, Latin America has generally performed very well. Regional economic growth has been fairly robust, averaging 5.5 percent from 2003-2008 and bouncing back from the global downturn better than most experts anticipated. Politically, several countries have made important democratic strides, with Brazil and Mexico standing out. And in contrast to the wave of market reforms in the 1990s, when the Washington Consensus held sway, governments have sought to complement pragmatic approaches to economic growth with an increased emphasis on the social agenda and the inclusion of marginalized groups. Sound policymaking and deepening concern with social disparities have […]

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is beginning talks to form a new government in Pakistan after winning the country’s general elections held over the weekend. Regional actors are already reacting to the results, with BBC News reporting that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he hoped for a “new course” in India-Pakistan relations. Shehzad Qazi, a research associate at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, spoke with Trend Lines about the foreign policy implications of the transition. “Sharif has come in at an interesting point in terms of the implementation of changed policy toward India and Afghanistan,” said Qazi, […]

A recent series of violent incidents between opposition protesters and security forces in Conakry highlights the challenges impeding Guinea’s political transition since the death in 2008 of Lansana Conte, Guinea’s leader for 24 years. Despite some progress toward stability, the outcome of the transition remains uncertain. The military coup launching the transition soon mobilized the civilian population into opposition; an unprovoked attack by members of the security forces in September 2009 on a protest rally in a Conakry stadium, including mass rapes, triggered a slow-motion progression toward elections. The maiming of junta leader Dadis Camara by a military rival opened […]

Pakistan’s elections Saturday will be the first time in the country’s 66-year history that things are going according to plan: A democratically elected civilian government completed its five-year term, ceding power to a three-month caretaker government that will oversee another election. Nonetheless, political violence in the past few weeks has effectively restricted campaigning to a single province, Punjab. This will all but ensure that the increasingly unpopular incumbent Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), whose campaign has been curtailed by the violence in its electoral strongholds, is removed from power. But even if the PPP had not been kept from campaigning, it […]

Since Nicolas Maduro’s narrow victory over opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski in Venezuela’s presidential election last month, tensions have escalated in the country, most recently with rival marches in the streets. Last week, lawmakers engaged in a fistfight in the Legislative Assembly, in an altercation underscoring Venezuela’s political uncertainty following the death of former President Hugo Chavez. Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, called Maduro’s inability to keep order striking. “A lot of his rhetoric and a lot of his actions reflect a kind of flailing about,” Shifter said of Maduro, explaining that while “he is trying to just […]

In elections over the weekend, the ruling coalition in Malaysia, which has been in power for 56 years, won 133 out of 222 seats in parliament, despite apparently having lost the popular vote by a thin margin. Anwar Ibrahim, who leads the opposition coalition, claimed the election outcome—which kept Prime Minister Najib Razak in office and his National Front coalition in the parliamentary majority—was the result of electoral fraud. “We are in uncharted waters for Malaysian politics,” said Jason Paul Abbott, director of the Center for Asian Democracy at the University of Louisville. “We just need to hope what we […]

One year from now, one of the great pageants of democracy will unfold in India, as hundreds of millions of citizens of the world’s largest democracy go to the polls to choose a new parliament. India’s May 2014 general election will focus, as it always has, on the need to fight poverty, reduce inequality and foster economic growth. And yet, more than ever before, the issue of corruption will play a pre-eminent role in guiding the voters’ decision. That’s because the Indian people are gradually but decisively coming to believe that endemic corruption is one of the greatest obstacles in […]

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on Tuareg politics in northern Mali. Part I examines the factors shaping internal political development among Mali’s Tuareg community. Part II will examine the factors shaping external relations among Mali’s Tuareg, the Malian government and France. The crisis in Mali put the Malian Tuareg community at the center of international security concerns. But for all the attention that the “desert warriors” behind the armed uprising in northern Mali have received, little effort has been made so far to develop an understanding of the internal politics of the Tuareg community and […]