Domestic Politics Archive

Last week, Iceland’s fragile ruling government collapsed under the weight of an unraveling pedophilia scandal that came to light over the summer. Elections have been called for Oct. 28, but with Icelandic politics more fractured than ever, there is no telling if scandal-ridden Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson will again occupy the nation’s highest office. In an email interview, Icelandic journalist Thorgils Jonsson provides the context for the controversy and explains what it all means for Iceland’s troubled politics and resurgent economy. WPR: Iceland’s prime minister has just called for a snap election. What led to the collapse of his ruling […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about education policy in various countries around the world. For many years, the issue of language has been a persistent point of social tension inside Ukraine, as the country contends with the nature of its relationship to Russia. After long downplaying the matter, Ukraine’s parliament brought it front and center last week with a new law that restricts the teaching of Russian and other minority languages in schools—eliciting outcries in capitals from Moscow to Budapest. In an email interview, Nicolai Petro, the Silvia-Chandley Chair in Peace and Nonviolence at the […]

Thais waited anxiously throughout the summer for the conclusion of the trial of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was removed by a military coup in May 2014. The charges Yingluck faced—mismanaging a rice subsidy scheme that wound up losing some $8 billion—were somewhat unusual, since she was not personally accused of corruption in the program. In some ways, she was being charged with making bad decisions in government. But a central objective of the junta since it took power has been to eradicate the influence of the Shinawatra family in Thai politics by breaking the bond between them and […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about education policy in various countries around the world. Since independence in 1971, Bangladesh has made several attempts to reform its education system. Despite some false starts, it has made important strides. Yet obstacles to reform have proved challenging, especially the bifurcated Islamic madrasa system that leaves millions of students unprepared for life outside of religious institutions. In an email interview, Md Shahnawaz Khan Chandan, an education activist and feature writer at The Daily Star in Dhaka, examines the short history of education reform in Bangladesh, its myriad successes and […]

Tundu Lissu was having a rough year even before he was attacked by multiple gunmen last week, taking bullets in the stomach, leg and arm. The opposition lawmaker, who is also president of the national bar association, gained new prominence last year when he began denouncing President John Magufuli as a “petty dictator.” Since then, he has been arrested repeatedly in retaliation for anti-government statements, including this past July and August. By the AFP’s count, he has been arrested “at least six times” in 2017 alone. Last Thursday, the dangers he faced became starker when assailants shot him outside his […]

Serbia’s short-lived withdrawal of all of its diplomats from neighboring Macedonia in late August, following a narrowly avoided regional trade war, brought the timeworn phrase “Balkan tensions” back into the news yet again. Both events are a sign of how strained international relations in the Balkans can still be, and of the difficulties that lie ahead as the region’s countries look to integrate into the European Union—and with one another. However dramatic, the spat between Serbia and Macedonia was quickly smoothed over, at least on the surface. Serbian diplomatic staff returned to their embassy in Skopje four days after they […]

Is the European Union finally out of the woods? Two years after the refugee and migrant crisis drove a continent-wide populist backlash, the existential threat to the union seems to be over. Optimism over signs of economic recovery is spreading, and the political landscape, though permanently altered in some places, seems to be recovering from the seismic upheaval of the past few years. Most importantly, the Franco-German partnership, historically the political motor of the EU’s development, seems to have regained its relevance, with both countries on solid footing domestically and in tandem. But many of the underlying challenges facing the […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series on LGBT rights and discrimination in various countries around the world. Since Haiti was devastated by an earthquake in 2010, the country’s already-marginalized LGBT community has faced a surge of attacks at home, including attempts to pass harsh legal measures that would further restrict LGBT rights. In response, Haiti’s LGBT community has become progressively more organized and active, pushing back for the first time. In an email interview, Amber Lynn Munger, senior program officer at the American Jewish World Service, explains the turbulent environment that LGBT people face in Haiti, […]

A leading pollster called it “the worst election in Mongolian history.” Last June, Mongolian voters went to the polls to choose a new president, though many of them were likely just looking forward to getting the process over with. During several weeks of campaigning, the three candidates had deployed appalling smear tactics, accusing each other of money laundering and graft based on scant evidence. On voting day, only 60.9 percent of the electorate turned out in a country that was once accustomed to over 90 percent participation. Almost 100,000 voters, or slightly more than 8 percent of the electorate, submitted […]

Niger’s president, Mahamadou Issoufou, is a central figure in two distinct but overlapping crises: the elevated flow of migrants from Africa to Europe and the insecurity in Africa’s Sahel region. In both crises, European leaders are increasingly looking to Issoufou to implement solutions. Issoufou has used his international prominence to play up his leadership at home, which may not be as secure as it seems. Within the migrant crisis, Niger is a key partner for European leaders who hope to both block migration and prevent it through economic development. The northern Nigerien city of Agadez is a hub for migrants […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about workers’ rights in various countries around the world. Rich in wealth but scarce in human capital, the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf have relied heavily on migrant laborers for much of the last half century. In recent years, however, social tensions and a severe economic downturn have put pressure on the region’s migrant labor force and caused many workers to be expelled. In an email interview, Karen Young, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, explains the policy underpinning migrant labor in the […]

When Mahmoud Abbas was re-elected as the head of Fatah at the party’s seventh congress late last year, the now 82-year-old president of the Palestinian Authority succeeded in affirming not only his 12-year grip on power, but his unquestioned supremacy within Palestinian politics. After years of purging his political opposition, the gathering was absent any members of Fatah that were not loyalists of the president. At the time, Abbas heralded it as “a congress for developing and getting to national unity.” Yet the real goal of the congress wasn’t to unite behind Abbas. It was to resolve the lingering issue […]

LIMA, Peru—After little more than a year in office, Peru’s president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, faces an uphill battle to realize his agenda of ramping up economic growth in order to reduce poverty and follow through on other campaign promises. Can PPK, as he is known in Peru, deliver? Kuczynski has faced some unexpected challenges over the past year. His administration was forced to funnel approximately $6.2 billion of federal funds into reconstruction of areas devastated by El Nino-linked floods in March, which Kuczynski says reduced economic growth this year by 2 percent. The administration is also struggling to restart major […]

For months, some of Israel’s top political figures have been embroiled in a series of growing corruption scandals that threaten to bring down the government. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has also been implicated and could face increasing pressure to resign from office as the story unfolds. In an email interview, Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf explains the backdrop of the multiple corruption investigations, what it all means for Netanyahu’s position as prime minister, and why Israel’s corruption problems date back decades. WPR: Can you describe the current set of corruption scandals unfolding in Israel and who is involved? Noam Sheizaf: There […]

Earlier this summer, Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe reshuffled his Cabinet in an attempt to repair the image of his suddenly beleaguered government, which has been hit by a series of corruption scandals. After four years of soaring, and seemingly unassailable, approval ratings, Abe has finally seen chinks in his armor, as questions even rise about his ability to serve out a third term as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP. If Abe loses the grip on his own party, his goal of staying as prime minister through the 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo—and becoming Japan’s longest-serving […]

After a failed coup attempt in July 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been on a mission to purge the country of his opponents, dismissing thousands of people from the military and civil service, stifling the press, and targeting Turkey’s formal political opposition. In an April referendum, Turkish voters granted Erdogan sweeping new powers that, according to his critics, pushed the country closer to authoritarianism. In an email interview, Iyad Dakka, a fellow with the Center for Modern Turkish Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, describes the new political landscape of the opposition, Erdogan’s efforts to target parties and […]

Two years ago, Guatemalans succeeded in pushing then-President Otto Perez Molina and Vice President Roxanna Baldetti out of office for corruption, thanks to the help of the U.N.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG. Through its investigations, which brought thousands of protesters out into the streets, the commission found that Perez Molina’s administration had led a high-level graft ring, taking bribes from international businesses rather than collecting taxes for the state. Both leaders are currently in prison. It was an unprecedented moment of accountability for a country that suffers from high rates of impunity. But it was just […]