Domestic Politics Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the status of women’s rights and gender equality in various countries around the globe. Last month, Pakistani social media star Fauzia Azeem, who went by the name Qandeel Baloch, was murdered by her brother in an alleged honor killing that was condemned by women’s groups, but praised by some people on social media. In an email interview, Anita Weiss, a professor at the University of Oregon, discusses women’s rights in Pakistan. WPR: What is the current status of women’s rights and gender equality in Pakistan? Anita Weiss: Many […]

On June 18, Mexico officially completed an eight-year transition toward a new justice system, replacing an outdated inquisitorial system, in which the court acts as investigator, with an adversarial one, in which the court is mainly an impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense. Under the old system, court cases were mostly conducted on paper, rather than in oral arguments, and convictions were often based on confessions and little else. Now, oral trials will be open to the public, and they will be based on testimony, cross-examinations and a greater reliance on evidence. Expectations for the new system vary […]

It is no secret that Saudi Arabia is experiencing a sharp economic slowdown and has decided to respond by implementing far-reaching economic reforms. But in recent days, a less well-known aspect of this transformation has become visible, highlighting the repercussions and potential risks of the kingdom’s crisis. Less than 60 days after the Saudi government announced its five-year National Transformation Program, part of the larger Vision 2030 reforms, the government of India announced it had launched an emergency operation to rescue thousands of desperate Indian nationals caught in Saudi Arabia’s economic crosscurrents. The plight of large numbers of South Asian […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the status of women’s rights and gender equality in various countries around the globe. The Colombian government and rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) agreed during peace negotiations last month to promote women’s access to property and to deny amnesty to perpetrators of sexual violence. In an email interview, Felipe Jaramillo Ruiz, a founding member of Colombian Network of International Relations and doctoral student at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, discusses women’s rights in Colombia. WPR: What is the current status of women’s rights and […]

Something odd happened at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last week: The Democratic Party seemingly became the party of the United States military. Speaker after speaker at the convention extolled the party’s support for the military and U.S. veterans, and lauded the foreign policy acumen and leadership of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, particularly in her support for the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. But perhaps the high point came on the third night of the convention when John Allen—a retired four-star general, former commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, and former special presidential envoy to […]

Last month, as an attempted military putsch was put down in Turkey, posters lining streets across Pakistan beckoned the country’s popular army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, to take over in a coup. The posters have since been taken down, and the man responsible for them arrested. But the question still remains: Is the Pakistani military poised to take over? The last time Pakistan experienced a coup, in October 1999, the context was markedly different from today. At the time, Pakistan was reeling economically, in part due to U.S. sanctions over the country’s May 1998 nuclear tests. Civil-military relations had gone […]

Climate-driven migration will likely affect millions of people in the coming decades, adding to the displacement of millions from war and instability. States and international organizations will need to dedicate additional resources to climate migrants, but they can already begin by integrating support into essential resilience and adaptation responses currently underway. Climate change policies are beginning to confront the complex dynamics of populations living in areas that are no longer habitable due to sea-level rise, desertification or other effects. Politics and policy choices are starting to play out at various levels. And the migrants themselves are grappling with decisions at […]

It has become a bit of a surreal experience to fly into Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC. Visitors are greeted by a modern terminal, opened in 2015 and capable of servicing 1 million passengers a year. The fresh tarmac of a 10-lane highway that glides commuters into the city center is lined with solar-powered streetlights and stops for a new public transit system. Clearly Kinshasa is trying its best return to its former glory, when it was admiringly called “la belle.” On the surface, a lot has changed since the last presidential election in […]

A bloody summer, with attacks from Orlando to Nice to Bangladesh, has left many wondering what compels an individual, whether a low-level criminal with a history of domestic violence or a student at an elite private school, to massacre civilians in the name of the so-called Islamic State or another extremist group. Even more confounding is how to stop them. That question isn’t new, or unique to the rise of the Islamic State. For years, governments, analysts and observers have worked to understand the drivers of radicalization and how best to block the road to extremism, particularly among youth. In […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on countries’ risk exposure, contribution and response to climate change. Last month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in an interview that imposing a “strong” price on carbon is an “essential element” of his government’s climate change policy. In an email interview, Amin Asadollahi, the lead for climate change mitigation at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, discusses Canada’s response to climate change. WPR: How big of an issue is climate change domestically, and what role has Canada played in regional and global efforts to address climate change? Amin […]

Shock waves from Venezuela’s precipitous economic collapse have finally reached Cuba. They are forcing drastic cuts in energy consumption, slashing economic growth from 4 percent last year to just 1 percent in 2016, and raising fears of another “Special Period”—the catastrophic economic decline in the 1990s that followed the collapse of Cuba’s previous patron, the Soviet Union. Cuba’s predicament was foreshadowed by the plunging price of oil on the world market and Venezuela’s declining production, down 12 percent in the past year alone. Nevertheless, for several years Venezuela continued to meet its obligation to ship some 80,000 to 90,000 barrels […]