Domestic Politics Archive

Protests spread across Colombia this week, with poor rural workers blockading highways and clashing with police and numerous labor unions declaring a national strike to express a wide range of grievances. The protests, which now involve farmers, miners, teachers and health care workers all putting forth different demands, are linked by a sense that the economic growth Colombia has experienced over the past decade has not been distributed fairly. The protests are occurring while the government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos seeks to conclude a peace deal with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s largest […]

This is the second in a two-part series on Peruvian politics. Part I examined the evolution of Peruvian politics since the Fujimori era and the challenging conditions for governance. Part II examines President Ollanta Humala’s government and discusses policy solutions to Peru’s political volatility and social upheaval. Two years into a five-year term, the government of Peruvian President Ollanta Humala is already facing plummeting public approval. Despite Humala’s rhetorical commitment to social inclusion and justice, his government’s reaction to escalating protests against extractive industries has sparked concerns not only about his willingness to forge a consensus between local communities and […]

This is the first in a two-part series on Peruvian politics. Part I examines the evolution of Peruvian politics since the Fujimori era and the challenging conditions for governance. Part II will examine President Ollanta Humala’s government and discusses policy solutions to Peru’s political volatility and social upheaval. Another Peruvian president faces evaporating public support, a fractious opposition and civil unrest in the interior. This time it’s President Ollanta Humala, a former military officer who in his second run for office in 2011 presented himself as a moderate, pro-business social democrat—a contrast to his first run in 2006, in which […]

A year after Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn came to power following the death of longtime leader Meles Zenawi in August 2012, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) remains firmly in control. It has continued to govern through a collective leadership that includes three deputy prime ministers from the Amhara, Tigray and Oromo wings of the coalition; Hailemariam hails from the Southern People’s Party. Party discipline and coherence has held, although the lead-up to elections in 2015 may reveal destabilizing fissures. But while older opposition parties and armed movements have been marginalized, a social movement of Ethiopian Muslims […]

American presidential elections often provide a forum to air differences on military strength between the opposing candidates and their parties. This was particularly true after Vietnam, when a clear distinction between the Republican and Democratic approaches to defense took shape. The GOP favored robust military spending, took a hard line toward the Soviet Union, was skeptical of international organizations and placed less stress on treaties to promote American security. Democrats, by contrast, emphasized international organizations, diplomacy and the promotion of collective and humanitarian interests. By the 1980s, the Republican notion clearly resonated more deeply with the American public: Ronald Reagan […]

Earlier this month, Uruguay’s House of Representatives passed a bill legalizing marijuana and regulating the production, distribution and sale of the drug by the government. While the bill has yet to be approved by the Uruguayan Senate, its passage is expected. Uruguay would then become the first country in the world where marijuana is fully regulated from cultivation to sale. The move sends a clear message that the existing drug prohibition regime is no longer adequate to address contemporary drug problems. Uruguay’s unprecedented initiative followed a groundbreaking report by the Organization of American States (OAS) that included a devastating assessment […]

Editor’s note: The following article is one of 30 that we’ve selected from our archives to celebrate World Politics Review’s 15th anniversary. You can find the full collection here. It’s been almost five years now since the global financial and economic crisis formally began with Lehman Brothers’ filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008. In today’s fast-paced, high-tech, hyperconnected world, five years is an eternity. In autumn of that year, the iPhone was barely one year old and only in its second iteration. No one had ever shared a photo of their dessert on Instagram because the service was […]

Next month, Sri Lanka’s northern province, which until four years ago was the site of a devastating war between the central government and ethnic Tamil separatists, will hold its first postwar provincial elections. In an email interview, Alan Keenan, senior analyst and Sri Lanka project director at International Crisis Group, discussed the trajectory of Sri Lanka’s politics and governance since the end of the civil war. WPR: How has the end of the war affected the political standing of Tamils in Sri Lanka? Alan Keenan: The political standing of Tamils has been weakened since the end of the war, despite […]

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on Australia’s upcoming elections. Part I looks at the domestic politics of the elections. Part II will examine the foreign policy issues at stake. When a desperate Australian Labor Party (ALP) ousted the incumbent prime minister, Kevin Rudd, in June 2010, replacing him with Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, no one foresaw that the ALP would be relying on Rudd to bring the party back from political oblivion in 2013. But in June of this year, with polls predicting the ALP would be decimated in the September election, […]

Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has won the presidential election against Soumaila Cisse in Mali, the West African country that made headlines in the past year and a half for its military coup and an international intervention to oust Islamist rebels. But while Cisse conceded Monday night in a peaceful conclusion to an election that some feared was coming too soon, many barriers remain in the way of the fulfillment of Keita’s campaign promise of unifying the country. Andrew Lebovich, Sahel consultant with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa and an expert on Mali, said Keita, who was prime minister from […]

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported earlier this month that China was considering relaxing its one-child policy for some families. In an email interview, Therese Hesketh, a professor at the Center for International Health and Development at University College London, explained the one-child policy’s impact and alternative policy options. WPR: What prompted the latest move to consider relaxing the one-child policy? Therese Hesketh: When the one-child policy was introduced in 1979, the government claimed it would last for one generation only. It is important to note that the one-child rule applies to less than half the population: Only urban […]

Characterized by false dawns, blind alleys and abrupt turnarounds, the tortuous mediation of Madagascar’s constitutional crisis has once more stalled. The Special Electoral Court’s ruling to allow the current unelected transition president, Andry Rajoelina, to stand in the presidential election, along with Lalao Ravalomanana—the wife of ousted President Marc Ravalomanana—and another former president, Didier Ratsiraka, remains a sticking point for most of the international community, which currently refuses to recognize a presidential poll should any of these three win. Logistically, the election cannot now take place on Aug. 23 as planned, and only the most optimistic stakeholders envision completing two […]

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) moved to rein in the Turkish military last week by blocking the promotion of a high-profile commander, Gen. Bekir Kalyoncu, and instead forcing the general’s retirement. Turkish media described the move as being tied to what is called the Ergenekon case, in which military officials are accused of trying to overthrow the government. Kalyoncu’s forced retirement, combined with the life sentence handed to former military chief Gen. Ilker Basbug in the Ergenekon case, underscored the shifting state of civil-military relations in Turkey, which is marked by a […]

The tally of Arab Spring winners and losers keeps changing in the Middle East, and it’s difficult to predict how the list will look when the revolutionary fervor dies down. There is one player, however, whose fortunes have eroded so dramatically as to bring into question whether it will survive as currently constituted. Hamas, the Islamist militant branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that has governed the Palestinian Gaza Strip since it took control by force in 2007, suddenly finds itself against the ropes, struggling to remain viable and showing its increasing difficulties through actions that reek of desperation. Hamas now […]

Since the birth of the transnational Salafi jihadist movement in Afghanistan during the 1980s, its leaders have refined a strategy based on “swarming.” Jihadists tied to or inspired by al-Qaida look for a conflict where locals are fighting a repressive or ineffective regime, preferably one seen as an outside, impious force. Jihadists then flock to the conflict and join local fighters, cast the clash in religious terms, push the locals toward the Salafist position associated with al-Qaida and, if possible, take over the resistance. Their goal is creation of an independent “emirate” to inspire other jihadists and, eventually, re-create the […]

For mineral-rich countries, large-scale extractive industry projects are a double-edged sword. On one hand, mining royalties and taxes provide funds that can be invested in infrastructure and social services. Mining projects can also create local jobs and spur demand for locally produced goods and services, supporting livelihoods and spurring economic growth. On the other hand, mining revenues can be—and there is plenty of evidence that they routinely are—spirited or frittered away, leaving little to show by way of long-term productive investment or better living standards. Moreover, mining booms undermine growth in other industries by skewing labor demand and swelling the […]

They have been overlooked by the international media, whose gaze has been fixed on Tahrir Square in Cairo and Taksim Square in Istanbul. But Bulgaria’s ongoing anti-government protests, which entered their 50th day last week, are indicative of a broader disillusionment with the political and economic elite seen all over Southeastern Europe. The concept of a state “captured” by business interests may resonate well beyond Bulgaria’s borders. The question is whether real change to how politics and the economy are run will come about. The demonstrations are Bulgaria’s biggest since 1997, when economic crisis brought citizens to the street and […]