Domestic Politics Archive

On June 2, authorities in the U.K. charged Agnes Reeves Taylor, the ex-wife of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, with torture in connection with crimes she allegedly committed during the West African nation’s prolonged period of civil conflict. The arrest makes Reeves Taylor the latest in a series of high-profile Liberians to be arrested in Europe and the United States in recent years. In Liberia, meanwhile, there has been no progress on justice initiatives under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Charles Taylor is serving a 50-year sentence in the U.K. for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but his trial dealt […]

A ransom payment for a kidnapped royal hunting party. Hacking claims and “fake news.” A blockade that U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to take credit for, hours after his secretary of state called for it to be lifted. “The biggest bovine airlift in history.” The escalating rift between Qatar, the tiny Gulf state with a big foreign policy agenda, and its neighbors, led by Saudi Arabia, already had all the makings of a geopolitical soap opera. And the plot keeps thickening. On Monday, Qatari shipping lines were rerouted to Oman, bypassing their usual ports in the United Arab Emirates, which […]

Last week, the political party of Thomas Thabane, a former prime minister of Lesotho, won the most seats in national elections and made plans to form a new coalition. Thabane has been a central figure in his Southern African country’s political turmoil in recent years, and he now faces a host of challenges, including trying to hold members of the security forces responsible for past crimes while striking a compromise on constitutional reforms. In an email interview, Samuel Severson, who is currently on a Fulbright-Hays fellowship in Lesotho and is pursuing a doctorate in history at Yale University, describes the […]

In March, to mark—and taunt—the two-year anniversary of the military intervention launched by Saudi Arabia in northern Yemen, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh marched down a major thoroughfare in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, surrounded by throngs of adoring supporters. Bodyguards cleared his path as a crowd of tens of thousands cheered him on. The Sanaanis, as the capital’s residents are called, were overjoyed to catch sight of the man they consider their leader—even though he was forced to step down as president five years prior. Saleh delivered a speech to the crowd in his clipped northern accent, triumphantly declaring that […]

In late April and into May, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, Hoyt Yee, made several visits and high-level phone calls to the countries of the Western Balkans. These states have been wracked by corruption scandals and governing standoffs that have raised questions about the effectiveness of American assistance. Yee’s efforts have yielded some positive outcomes. But they also made clear that American diplomacy alone cannot provide the longer-term solutions to the region’s nagging political and economic problems. After Yee’s visit to Skopje on April 29, Gjorge Ivanov, Macedonia’s president, finally gave the opposition party […]

The dramatic crisis pitting tiny, oil-wealthy Qatar against regional powers Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt raises the question of the survivability of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional organization of six Gulf states. Most likely, Qatar will make some concessions to return to the fold. But the GCC will end up weaker as a result, and Riyadh’s ambition to push for deeper unity of effort among the six states will not be realized. The political assault against Qatar has seen Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other states break diplomatic ties with Doha, as well as close their […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about education policy in various countries around the world. On June 1, thousands of people attended rallies throughout Croatia calling for education reform. The mobilization came one year after similar rallies drew tens of thousands into the streets. Yet little has been accomplished during that time, and pro-reform activists accuse the government of contravening the will of the people by undermining the reform effort. In an email interview, Marko Kovacic, project manager at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb who has previously served as research manager for the […]

Kosovo is planning to hold snap parliamentary elections on Sunday, one month after Prime Minister Isa Mustafa lost a no-confidence motion. As Reuters notes, Kosovo has experienced considerable political turbulence in the past 18 months, with parliament being targeted by riots, tear gas and even a rocket-propelled grenade. In an email interview, Florian Bieber, professor of Southeast European history and politics at the University of Graz in Austria and coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group, explains what the vote is expected to bring and how it might affect diplomatic initiatives such as ongoing talks with Serbia. WPR: […]

Gubernatorial elections in three Mexican states last Sunday were supposed to show Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s viability as a candidate in next year’s presidential race. Instead they checked the ambitions of the brash left-leaning populist aiming to succeed outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto in 2018. Lopez Obrador’s party, the National Regeneration Movement, known as MORENA, lost in all three states. He’s now calling for a recount in the key race in Mexico state, the country’s most populous by a wide margin. Blaming tough election losses on fraud has been a familiar tactic for the fiery two-time presidential candidate who Mexicans […]

The crisis in America’s foreign policy apparatus entered a stunning new phase this past week with President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, followed yesterday by his comments on Twitter essentially taking Saudi Arabia’s side against Qatar in an intra-Gulf dispute. In between, reports emerged that during his visit to Brussels two weeks ago, Trump removed a passage from his speech explicitly confirming his commitment to NATO’s collective defense clause, Article 5, without notifying his national security adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, all of whom had argued […]

After a political shake-up last month, Austria is set to be Europe’s next battleground in the fight between mainstream politicians and far-right populists. On May 10, after months of political bickering and party infighting, Reinhold Mitterlehner stepped down as Austria’s vice chancellor and chairman of the center-right Austrian People’s Party, or OVP. That effectively ended Austria’s grand governing coalition between the OVP and the center-left Social Democratic Party, or SPO. A few days later, Chancellor Christian Kern, who leads the SPO, announced that Austria would hold snap parliamentary elections on Oct. 15. Aside from growing frictions within the ruling coalition, […]

Demonstrations are continuing across Morocco in the wake of the arrest of a number of popular leaders of an emergent social justice movement. Despite the government crackdown, protests against corruption and unfair privilege—known as “hogra” in the local Darija dialect of Arabic—have steadily unfolded in the city of Al-Hoceima on the northern Mediterranean coast. Last week, they spread to the capital, Rabat, and the main commercial hub, Casablanca. Located in Morocco’s mountainous Rif region, Al-Hoceima has been at the center of the protest movement, known as al-Hirak al-Shaabi, or the Popular Movement, which has developed over the past seven months […]

Bahrain’s political scene has never been defined by the presence of a robust opposition. But the dissolution last Wednesday of Waad, a major secular opposition group, took an ongoing crackdown to new heights. Waad was hardly the first opposition movement to be targeted; one year ago, for example, the government suspended the activities of al-Wefaq, at the time Bahrain’s main Shiite political party. But Waad will likely be the last opposition group to endure the government’s wrath for a while, by virtue of the fact that it was the only one left. Waad was a fixture of the pro-democracy protests […]

Is there any reason to feel good about this year’s miserable British election campaign? The process has been messy, cantankerous and punctuated by appalling acts of terrorism. With the opposition Labour party unexpectedly gaining ground on the ruling Conservatives, it is possible that this Thursday’s poll will leave Great Britain looking even more confused, less united and less consequential on the global stage. Liberal internationalists should nonetheless take a soupcon of comfort from this rather poor exercise in democracy. Despite the storm of Brexit, the campaign has at least for now defused fears that the United Kingdom could renege on […]

Since the collapse of world oil prices in 2014, the wealthy Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf have all faced difficult times, but especially Oman. Last month, things got even worse when Standard & Poor’s downgraded Oman’s credit rating to junk status over concerns with the country’s budget and revenue prospects as oil prices stay low. After recording average budgetary surpluses of 9.7 percent of GDP in the 2000s, Oman has seen fiscal deficits of 1.1 percent of GDP in 2014, 15.1 percent in 2015 and 20.6 percent in 2016. Unless oil prices increase significantly, the country will face the […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about education policy in various countries around the world. In Sri Lanka, controversy surrounding a private medical university has led to months of demonstrations and fierce debate on the merits of private education institutions in general. Last month, in Colombo, police used tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters who, according to the Associated Press, ignored an official protest ban to make their case that the medical university, the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine, should be shut down. In an email interview, Nisha Arunatilake, a fellow with […]

Colombia right now is closer than it has ever been to solving its illicit drug problem. This may be a surprising contention, since the country just measured record-breaking cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine. Yet the landmark peace deal between the Colombian government and the country’s principal guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has eliminated the most prominent obstacle to consolidate democratic governance over the vast rural areas where coca is cultivated. Or, at least it has eliminated the handiest excuse for longstanding inaction. Passed in November, the peace accord, along with President […]