Domestic Politics Archive

Earlier this month, Hong Kong’s legislature vetoed an election-reform package that was backed by mainland China but strongly criticized by pro-democracy lawmakers and activists. In an email interview, Michael C. Davis, professor at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, discussed Hong Kong’s democracy movement. WPR: What do democratic advocates in Hong Kong fear from China’s proposed electoral plan? Michael C. Davis: China’s democratic reform proposal essentially provides for a vetted election for Hong Kong’s chief executive. Under the Aug. 31, 2014, Beijing decision and the Hong Kong legislative bill to carry it out, a heavily pro-Beijing 1,200-member nominating […]

Globally, the legal, political and social progress achieved by women over the past half-century has been attributed to the democratization of societies and the emergence of more widely accepted human rights norms. This is not the case with respect to the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These countries have confronted rapid internal and external changes in recent years, and they have strived to reform themselves on a variety of fronts, including the economy, labor and some areas of politics. Yet despite some progress in these other domains, Gulf […]

Unlike his predecessors, Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, has enjoyed consistently high approval ratings since coming into office in 2007. And while support for some other regional leaders, hit hard by economic slowdowns and corruption scandals, are nearing rock-bottom levels, Correa’s rule has also been relatively free of political turbulence. But over the past several weeks, that has changed. Growing protests reveal that many Ecuadoreans are increasingly disaffected and no longer afraid to take to the streets and openly defy a self-assured president intent on carrying out his so-called citizens’ revolution. The biggest protests came late last week in the country’s […]

Even though the United States was founded on the idea that all people have inalienable rights, applying that principle to all Americans has been a long, still-incomplete struggle played out in multiple arenas, including the U.S. military. Over the past 75 years, the armed forces have been used to advance this cause several times. Presidents found the military a valuable tool in the expansion of rights and the construction of a more unified society because it could be ordered to accept change to an extent that the rest of society could not. The military also tended to judge its members […]

Another round of bailout talks today between Greece and its creditors, the so-called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ended without a deal. Next Tuesday Greece is scheduled to make a $1.8 billion loan repayment to the IMF at the same time its bailout program is due to expire. If there is no agreement, an additional $8.1 billion in bailout funds will remain frozen; Greece will default on its loans; and the country could be forced to leave the eurozone. European finance ministers are scheduled to reconvene Saturday for a […]

AMSTERDAM—Like much of Europe, the Dutch have been keeping a close eye on developments in Greece. As negotiators continue to meet in efforts to hammer out a deal that would avert a Greek default, experts warn that the consequences of failing to reach an agreement would range from very painful to catastrophic. Here in the Netherlands, the subject occupies private conversations, occasional streets protests and countless headlines. And yet, the dilemma of how or whether to give another lifeline to Greece is only a prelude to a more far-reaching and divisive political battle looming ahead. If Greece defaults and ultimately […]

Mining conflicts are intensifying across Latin America, with 218 mining projects embroiled in conflicts with 312 communities—including six conflicts spanning national borders—from Mexico to Argentina. One of the most prominent protests flared up this spring in southern Peru, at the $1.4 billion Tia Maria copper mine run by the Mexican-owned company Southern Copper. In late May, more than five years of protests came to a head there, with a general strike and police crackdown that resulted in five deaths and hundreds wounded and arrested. One issue above all is driving the Tia Maria protests, the 34 others in Peru and […]

There are so many depressing realities underscored by the tragic shooting deaths of nine African-American parishioners in the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, it’s hard to know where to begin: from the seeming permanence of America’s glaring racial divide to the country’s inability to stanch the unceasing carnage of gun violence that is unlike that of any other country in the world. But here’s one that will be self-evident to most foreign policy observers: If the gunman in Charleston had been not white, but Arab, and if he had yelled “Allahu akbar,” rather than uttering racist statements, we wouldn’t be […]

KAMPALA, Uganda—As Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, is learning, subverting constitutional term limits can be a tricky business. In April, Nkurunziza announced he would be running for a third stint ahead of a June vote, despite a constitutional limit of two terms. His announcement was met with immediate protests, still ongoing, and an attempted coup. The election is now delayed until at least July. His counterparts in nearby Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo must be watching warily. Both are about to bump up against their own term caps—the DRC’s Joseph Kabila next year and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame in […]

Last week, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has a warrant out for his arrest by the International Criminal Court, left South Africa without incident, even after South Africa’s High Court ruled that he was to be prevented from leaving. In an email interview, Pierre de Vos, professor of constitutional law at the University of Cape Town, discussed South Africa’s judiciary. WPR: How has South Africa’s judiciary evolved since the end of apartheid, both as an institution and demographically, compared to other government branches, and has it been cleared of all apartheid-era judges? Pierre de Vos: The composition of the South […]

The political change heralded by the 2010-2011 wave of protests across the Middle East and North Africa known as the Arab Spring never reached Lebanon, but the small Mediterranean country of 4 million has been suffering from the repercussions of those momentous events ever since. To the north, fighters and goods are still being smuggled to embattled Syria. To the northeast, a war of attrition is underway with Islamist militants, who have already seized vast swathes of territory from northern Syria and Iraq. To the south, there is the ever-volatile border with Israel. Indeed, in all directions, Lebanon’s fate is […]

Over the past month, Myanmar’s multiple domestic crises have spilled over its borders and into South and Southeast Asia, setting back the country’s reforms just before Myanmar’s highly anticipated national elections this fall. Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence and discrimination in western Myanmar have attracted the most global news coverage. Their plight in rickety boats with little food or water has sparked international calls for Myanmar’s government to take stronger measures to end discrimination against the Rohingya and address the crisis at its source. But the flight of the Rohingya is just one issue undermining Myanmar’s stability. Fighting has flared again […]

Among the many questions left unanswered by the surprise results of Turkey’s recent parliamentary elections are whether and how the country’s foreign policy will change now that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has lost its ability to single-handedly control the legislature. On June 7, Turkish voters delivered a stunning blow to the AKP and its founder, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After having handed him more than a decade of landslide victories, voters denied Erdogan the two-thirds supermajority that would have opened the way for the AKP to rewrite the constitution without submitting it to a referendum, making Erdogan […]

With all eyes on Greece, especially after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) walked away from debt negotiations last week, bringing Athens that much closer to default, it is easy to miss that last week also marked the one-year anniversary of Portugal completing its bailout program. Portugal isn’t in the clear just yet: Its employment rate increased to 13.7 percent last month and debt to GDP ratio is 129 percent. But its economic situation has stabilized, and the government is repaying its debts on time, if not early. Portugal signed its 78 billion euro economic adjustment program with the so-called troika […]

Sometimes what a politician says matters less than what he or she doesn’t say. Case in point: Hillary Clinton’s big presidential announcement speech this past weekend. Clinton had a lot to say about income inequality and the need to rebalance an economy in which a privileged few accrue enormous benefits, while the many make do with meager crumbs. She had detailed policy proposals on early childhood education, infrastructure, voting rights and strengthening the social safety net. But in a more than 4,000-word speech, she spent all of 325 words on foreign policy. While she went into full wonk mode on […]

In late March, Jane’s reported that Angola would soon receive the first batch of Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets as part of an ongoing military modernization program that kicked off four years ago. The modernization program aims to boost the number of troops in service and renew Angola’s military hardware in order to improve the operational capabilities of its armed forces. But when it was launched, resource-rich Angola was awash in oil revenue. The drop in global oil prices since last summer raises questions about the sustainability of Angola’s military modernization, as a growing economic crisis has already forced the […]

Earlier this month, lawmakers in Uruguay announced they were working on legislation that would classify femicide—the gender-motivated killing of women—as a crime. In an email interview, Patricia Leidl, a Vancouver-based international communications adviser, discussed government responses to crime against women across Latin America. WPR: What has prompted the recent public outcry against violence against women in Latin America? Patricia Leidl: The “recent” outcry over violence against Latin American women is in fact not recent at all. Since the early 1990s, human and women’s rights defenders have been raising the alarm over steadily climbing rates of gender-based violence in Mexico, El […]