Domestic Politics Archive

After almost three years of talks, Colombia’s peace negotiations with the FARC guerrilla group will end soon—with or without an agreement. Amid an uptick in violence in recent months, Humberto de la Calle, the government’s chief negotiator, said in a July 5 interview with the Colombian media, “It’s clear to me that the process is coming to its end, for good or ill. It could be because we’ve reached an accord, as we’re in the homestretch of the fundamental issues [on the negotiation agenda]. Or for ill, if—as is happening—Colombians’ patience runs out.” Two days after de la Calle’s interview, […]

Earlier this month, European ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss the Mediterranean migrant crisis and the redistribution of asylum seekers. Though France and Germany voluntarily committed to take in 21,000 migrants, other European Union member states rejected the call for a mandatory quota system. Leading that call was one of the most vocal opponents of the EU’s asylum and migration policy: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Last month, Orban defiantly suspended the asylum rules known as the Dublin Regulation, which allows refugees to be sent back to the country where they first requested asylum, citing technical difficulties with its implementation. […]

On Friday, South Korea announced the 36th death from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), though no new cases have been reported in five days. In an email interview, Myoungsoon You, an assistant professor of public health at Seoul National University, discussed South Korea’s public health system and its response to the MERS outbreak. WPR: How robust is South Korea’s public health system, and what measures are in place to contain outbreaks such as MERS? Myoungsoon You: The MERS outbreak has exposed great weaknesses in South Korea’s public health system. Lack of necessary services such as negative room pressure systems […]

In 1925, Syrians rose up against their French colonial authorities. The revolt started in southern Syria, in the rugged homeland of the Druze, an esoteric religious sect with roots in Shiite Islam. Druze rebels near the town of Suwayda shot down a French surveillance plane, and before long a full-scale rebellion spread to Damascus and farther north, led by a Druze leader, Sultan al-Atrash, who became a nationalist hero in Syria. Nearly 90 years later, the Syrian uprising that began in 2011 also got its spark in southern Syrian—not in the Druze homeland, but in the dusty border town of […]

When it comes to the power of arcane financial matters to capture global attention, nothing in recent weeks compares to the drama surrounding Greece’s debt. But there is another simmering crisis with potential to do far more damage to the world economy. Consider that as depositors in Greece lined up at ATMs to withdraw pocket change from their bank accounts, investors in China were bleeding assets at an unprecedented rate. And these days, even a small financial tremor in China can be felt around the world. The Chinese stock market has endured its sharpest drop in more than 20 years. […]

Last month, Indian special operations forces conducted a brief raid into Myanmar looking for militants. In an email interview, Iskander Rehman, a nonresident fellow at the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, discussed India’s special operations forces. WPR: How developed are India’s special operations forces, and what are their principal capabilities? Iskander Rehman: That’s a difficult question to answer, in part because some of India’s special operations forces (SOF) units may bear a closer resemblance to what Western military analysts would consider to be elite and/or specialized infantry than to special operators. Within the Indian army, for example, there […]

In May, amid increased migrant flows from Africa to Europe, Niger approved a bill that will translate the United Nations protocol against the smuggling of migrants into national law. In an email interview, Oliver Kaplan, an assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and associate director of the Human Trafficking Center, discussed the U.N. protocol and Niger’s efforts to implement it. WPR: What are the main provisions of the U.N. protocol against smuggling migrants? Oliver Kaplan: The U.N. protocol against smuggling migrants contains provisions for the criminalization of smuggling and the care […]

The Greek debt crisis entered uncharted waters this week, as Athens defaulted on an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan after negotiations with its international creditors to extend its bailout program broke down. This report collects World Politic Review’s coverage of the crisis, from its origins in 2010 to the final days of the negotiations. For the next two weeks, all of the articles linked below are free for non-subscribers. From Crisis to Contagion In October 2009, the newly elected government of then-Prime Minister George Papandreou revealed that Greece’s budget deficit was far greater than previously acknowledged. The announcement caused the […]

At the African Union’s biannual summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 13-15, the principal task was to consolidate the “Africa rising” narrative—the belief that the continent has moved onto a new and more positive political and economic trajectory over the past decade. Two of the principal themes of that narrative are good governance and democratization. While the AU’s formal declarations in this area are encouraging, several developments suggest the gap between AU theory and practice will once again be persistent. Moreover, the very structure of the organization may stand in the way of progress. The summit was overshadowed by […]

Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina announced earlier this month that he is open to running for re-election after Congress passed legislation allowing presidents to serve two consecutive terms. In an email interview, Matthew Singer, an associate professor of comparative politics at the University of Connecticut, discussed domestic politics in the Dominican Republic. WPR: What is the state of democracy consolidation in the Dominican Republic, and what are the implications for it of Congress’s recent approval of consecutive presidential terms? Matthew Singer: Term limits have an interesting history in the Dominican Republic. Immediate re-election was allowed from 1966-1996, banned in 1996, […]