Domestic Politics Archive

As the U.S. presidential campaign finally wraps up, the Middle East is taking away some very negative messages about American culture that will diminish America’s ability to be a model for good governance and to influence outcomes in the region. Iran’s media has even used a broadcast of the U.S. presidential debates to validate the regime narrative of America’s corruption and weak moral values, and Iran’s own preference for strict religious codes of conduct. But Arab states working to avoid extremism and authoritarianism still seek virtue in the American experience, even if they are not yet ready to embrace democracy […]

Jacob Berry is searching for any sign he can return to the home in Darfur he fled 13 years ago. In 2003, near the outset of the ongoing conflict in Darfur, a Khartoum-backed militia attacked Berry’s village. In their efforts to root out a rebel movement, government troops and state-supported fighters have committed countless targeted atrocities against civilians, and Berry’s village was not spared. Houses were set alight, residents scattered, and an unknown number of people killed, including his father and brother. Berry, then 15, fled all the way to Libya’s Mediterranean coast, before boarding a boat for Alexandria, Egypt. […]

When French authorities dismantled the migrant camp in Calais known as the Jungle in late October, many asked what would happen to the encampment’s 9,000 residents. The answer was not long in coming: Rather than relocating to government-run shelters, many simply swelled the ranks of France’s other migrant encampments that had until now escaped the glare of international press coverage. Calais is far from being the only site of France’s migrant crisis. Since June 2015, French police have demolished some 30 makeshift encampments—home to thousands of migrants, primarily from Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Sudan—in Paris. But the crisis worsened following the […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on a range of countries’ space priorities and programs. The Canadian Space Agency and the University of Calgary recently announced plans to study how long-duration space missions affect astronauts’ brains, starting in 2018. In an email interview, Charity Weeden, a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, discusses Canada’s space program. WPR: What are Canada’s space capabilities, in terms of its domestic public and private space-industrial complex, and who are its major international partners, in terms of space diplomacy and commercial ties? Charity Weeden: Canada has a 54-year history […]

Voting has finally begun for the upper and lower houses of Somalia’s Federal Parliament after several delays. While both houses are due to elect a new president on Nov. 30, security and logistical challenges mean the presidential election is also likely to be postponed. In an email interview, Kenneth Menkhaus, a professor at Davidson College, discusses Somalia’s elections. WPR: How are Somalia’s elections structured, in terms of eligible voters, candidates, political parties and affiliation, and what are the major blocs or factions contesting the election? Kenneth Menkhaus: Somalia’s current elections are most accurately described as a form of indirect consociational […]

After more than 18 months of following a heated campaign, Americans head to the polls on Tuesday to elect the next president of the United States. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton faces Republican nominee Donald Trump in a race that polls show is closer than many expected. This compilation of WPR’s analysis looks at what’s at stake in the election and what a Trump or Clinton presidency would mean for U.S. foreign policy. The following seven articles are free to nonsubscribers until Nov. 18. The Foreign Policy Debate That Wasn’t The Populist Revolt That Propelled Trump Won’t Fade Away If He […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the African exodus from the International Criminal Court, Japan’s relationship with the Philippines, and the U.S. presidential election. For the Report, Sarah Kendzior joins Peter Dörrie to talk about Uzbekistan after the death of President Islam Karimov. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: An African Exodus From the ICC Shows How the Court Sealed Its Own Fate Can Japan Play the Mediator Amid Strained U.S.-Philippine Ties? The Populist Revolt That Propelled Trump Won’t Fade Away If He Loses The Death of […]

When Tunisians overthrew dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, they kicked off a wave of popular uprisings throughout the Middle East and spurred a jubilant sense of unity at home. But for champions of women’s rights in the country, that jubilation was soon replaced by a sense of dread over what might happen to those rights as Islamist conservatism began to take hold. While Ben Ali’s two decades in power were marked by corruption, human rights abuses and tight restrictions on free speech and political opposition, his regime did preserve the secular foundations of Tunisia’s strong women’s rights legislation, […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on a range of countries’ space priorities and programs. Last week, two bills were introduced in the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives that would establish a space development program and a Philippine Space Agency. The legislation has been well received, but it is unknown when lawmakers will vote on the bills. In an email interview, Rogel Mari Sese, a program leader at the National SPACE Development Program, the government agency working to establish a space agency, discusses the Philippines’ space program. WPR: What are the Philippines’ space capabilities, […]

Has Venezuela reached its boiling point? The country’s economic, political and humanitarian crises have deepened since the opposition took control of the legislature last December. Venezuelans have taken to the streets with increasing fervor, demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro, who has in turn taken unilateral measures to consolidate his power. Hostility has intensified between the president and the opposition, and the embattled government’s actions have only exacerbated tensions and done little to address popular frustration. World Politics Review has compiled 10 articles that chronicle Venezuela’s slide toward the abyss. The following 10 articles are free to nonsubscribers until […]

With the world’s three highest homicide rates since 2010, the Northern Triangle of Central America—the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras—have become the fulcrum of regional insecurity. In addition to levels of violence surpassing those of countries at war, the region is a base for transnational drug cartels, the virulent youth gangs known as “maras,” and criminality ranging from mass deforestation to money laundering. The reverberations of this multifaced security crisis, particularly the waves of underage migrants fleeing north to the United States, has finally focused attention enough to forge a concerted response. In February 2015, the Obama administration […]

In a few days, voters will cast their ballots in a presidential election that has been marked by such unimaginable developments that if it were a work of fiction, publishers would reject it as far too implausible. No, we’re not talking about the United States. This election will take place in Nicaragua on Nov. 6. And we can already predict with absolute certainty that Daniel Ortega will be elected president. Again. Ortega’s name became known around the world in the 1980s as a leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a Marxist guerrilla group that toppled Nicaragua’s four-decade-long Somoza family […]

On Friday, Mouhcine Fikri, a fishmonger in the northern Moroccan town of Al-Hoceima, jumped into the compacter of a garbage truck in an attempt to salvage some $11,000 of fish that had been confiscated by the police. He was subsequently crushed to death. Footage of the carnage was shared widely online. Moroccans immediately took to social media, decrying “hogra,” a term used to describe injustice at the hands of the government. Angry posts turned into mass protests, which began Sunday in the Rif region and spread across the country. Some protesters called Fikri’s death premeditated. The demonstrations, which are ongoing, […]

Last week, Rodrigo Duterte, the combative and mercurial new president of the Philippines, made high-profile visits to China and Japan, which have the two largest economies in Asia. In Beijing, Duterte offered alarming comments about his desire to “separate” from the United States, the Philippines’ sole military ally and security guarantor. In his typical off-the-cuff manner, he publicly mused that it would be preferable to join in some trilateral relationship with China and Russia, rather than focus on Manila’s relationship with Washington. China, looking to seize on Duterte’s vitriol against the U.S., offered him a massive suite of soft loans, […]

In less than a week, Americans will vote for their next president. The choice this year is stark, particularly with regard to the two candidates’ character and qualifications. For all her flaws, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is clearly qualified and prepared to assume the presidency. By contrast, her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, has demonstrated a lack of seriousness and a cavalier amateurishness that makes him ill-suited for the office. This is not so much an endorsement of Clinton as a statement of fact for most unbiased observers of international affairs and national security. It is also unfortunate, since the campaign—while […]

On Aug. 26, Uzbekistan’s state media abruptly announced that President Islam Karimov had passed a new resolution: This year, in addition to the annual Independence Day festivities on Sept. 1, the following day, Sept. 2, would also be a national holiday. According to the Uzbek media, the extra day off was necessary “for the creation of favorable conditions for the rest of the population, and the rational use of working time.” It is unlikely that Karimov actually signed off on this resolution, though. By Aug. 26, Uzbekistan’s first and only president was brain-dead, having had a massive stoke, as confirmed […]

The status of women in traditional Muslim societies, particularly Saudi Arabia, has long been an awkward source of cultural and political tension between the West and the oil-rich monarchies of the Arab world. Women’s roles are gradually changing as these states modernize, but more disruptive social change could well occur within a generation, as larger cohorts of educated women succeed in challenging social norms. Gender issues have been at the margins of U.S. relations with the Arab world for decades, and the mantra inside Western bureaucracies more generally has been that each society changes at its own pace. But while […]