Domestic Politics Archive

The small island-state of Timor-Leste exemplifies the challenge of resource-based development for a poor country well-endowed with a valuable natural resource. Timor-Leste, which gained its independence in 2002, has accumulated $13 billion in its petroleum fund in less than a decade. Some of the largest multinational oil companies are operating in the country, and the revenues continue to flow. And yet, while Timor-Leste has seen very notable improvements in its development indicators in the past few years, it continues to face a massive challenge of converting financial wealth into economic development. There are also heated debates about how to spend […]

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will serve a seventh term in office, having reportedly won 61 percent of the vote in Zimbabwe’s general elections last week, compared to 34 percent of the vote for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, despite charges of electoral fraud. South African President Jacob Zuma extended his congratulations to Mugabe, while the United States and the United Kingdom expressed concerns about the integrity of the vote, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry saying the outcome failed to “represent a credible expression of the people.” In an email interview with Trend Lines, James Hamill, a lecturer in the […]

Experts on post-conflict reconstruction don’t talk much about the idea of honor. They emphasize worthy but bloodless concepts like good governance instead. Yet appealing to national pride can do wonders for a politician aiming to inspire the citizens of a war-damaged country. In Mali, for instance, it has worked for Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a veteran politician who is on course to be the country’s next president. He has promised to restore “the honor of Mali” after its collapse into civil war in 2012, during which Tuareg separatists and Islamists seized the north of the country, necessitating an intervention by France […]

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s recently announced asylum policy made headlines around the world. The approach is punitive, insisting that no asylum-seeker who arrives in Australia by boat without a visa will ever be settled there. Instead, asylum-seekers’ claims will be processed in Papua New Guinea; if successful, that is where they will be resettled. The policy also comes against the backdrop of a steady increase in boat arrivals, or irregular maritime arrivals (IMAs) in the language of Australian bureaucracy. In 2010-2011 there were 4,750 IMAs, while in 2011-2012 there were 8,092. Current estimates are for even more during 2012-2013. […]

Last month, a war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh handed down a guilty verdict against Islamist party leader Ghulam Azam, its fifth conviction of a prominent political figure for involvement in atrocities committed during the country’s 1971 war for independence. In an email interview, Zakia Afrin, an adjunct professor in international law at Golden Gate University who focuses on intra-state conflict and peacebuilding, discussed the state of Bangladesh’s war crimes trials and the lessons they yield for other contexts. WPR: How well have Bangladesh’s war crimes trials succeeded in terms of providing a fair and legitimate legal process? Zakia Afrin: As […]

It was the phone call heard around the world: The conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was hailed as a major diplomatic breakthrough, a triumph for U.S. President Barack Obama, who in the last moments of his trip to Israel last March nudged the two leaders to end their festering disagreement. Reconciliation, however, is yet to come. Four months after the call, Israel and Turkey have still not managed to bridge the gaps that have separated them since relations fell apart in May 2010, when an Israeli raid on a Turkish ship […]