Domestic Politics Archive

The bitter Arab rivalry in the Persian Gulf is reshaping traditional spheres of influence and exacerbating fault lines farther south, in the Horn of Africa, the continent’s most volatile region. The spat between fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which began a year ago when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led an embargo of neighboring Qatar that shows no sign of ending, has sparked frantic diplomatic and economic activity across the Red Sea, with serious security consequences. Thrust center-stage into these changing political geographies is Somalia, among the world’s poorest and most conflict-prone countries. The fragile nation, […]

Over the past few decades, the U.S. military has had to shift its focus several times as the security environment and American national interests evolved. Until the end of the Cold War, it concentrated on preparing to fight the Soviet Union, potentially with nuclear weapons. In the 1990s, most of the military’s attention was on conventional wars against what were called “rogue states,” particularly Iran, Iraq and North Korea. After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. military retooled for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. Now that era, too, is ending. Today, as the United States disengages from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Russia and […]

Since it was formally established in 2002, the International Criminal Court has been far more active in Africa than in any other region of the world. The court currently has investigations open in nine countries on the continent, and is conducting “preliminary examinations” in three others. As demonstrated this month when the ICC overturned its 2016 conviction of Jean-Pierre Bemba, the former vice president of Democratic Republic of the Congo, the court’s activities can have major political consequences in all these places. Yet when it comes to transitional justice, the ICC is hardly the only game in town in Africa. […]

Malawi’s next presidential election is still nearly a year away, yet the incumbent, Peter Mutharika, is already facing potential challenges from unlikely corners. Recent indications that former President Joyce Banda as well as Saulos Chilima, Mutharika’s own vice president, may mount bids for the country’s top office, combined with a spate of protests against persistent corruption and economic stagnation, underscore widespread disappointment with Mutharika’s record so far. But any opposition candidates will have a tough time defeating the incumbent at the ballot box, which means Malawian voters have every reason to be skeptical that genuine reforms addressing their country’s most […]

European leaders are widely expected to maintain Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia at this week’s European Council summit in Brussels, despite disagreement among some member states. With Italy’s newly formed populist government looking at improving ties with Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly preparing to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next month, the key player holding together an EU-wide consensus on sanctions policy is Germany. In an email interview, Susan Stewart, a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, or SWP, in Berlin, discusses the impact of sanctions on German-Russian relations and how they are […]

The events of the past month have some political observers wondering if the United States has begun, or is in the midst of, a slide toward authoritarianism under President Donald Trump. The worry is that, with the Republican Party apparently cowed by Trump and his political base, the constitutional system of checks and balances is no longer fit for purpose. Against this backdrop, the administration’s coarsened political rhetoric and policies against immigrants and asylum-seekers at the border are seen as precursors for broader restrictions of liberties moving forward. At the same time, there is a backlash—from Trump supporters, but also […]

CALOOCAN, Philippines—The battlefield of this war looks like any other bustling urban district in the Philippines. The sidewalks are crammed with street vendors selling everything from food to underwear. Pedestrians zigzag through the roads, avoiding motorized rickshaws known as tricycles and careening jeepneys, the colorful converted jeeps that are the country’s most common form of public transportation. The air is thick with smog and heavy with the sound of blaring horns and screeching tires. Set back from the streets are rows of makeshift homes stitched together by pieces of wood, corrugated steel and tarpaulin. This is Bagong Silang, an informal […]

BRATISLAVA—Slovakia, a NATO member that has called itself part of the “core of the European Union,” may talk positively about its Western orientation, but its actions recently suggest an increasingly closer alignment to Russia and its interests in Europe. Many observers point to the junior partner in its coalition government, the Slovak National Party, or SNS, as the reason why. The party’s nationalist, euroskeptic leader, Andrej Danko, the speaker of the Slovak parliament, has visited Moscow twice in the past eight months. Earlier this month, Slovakia’s Defense Ministry, which is headed by a member of the SNS, postponed a long-awaited […]

The new president that Mexico elects this weekend will not take office until Dec. 1, which means there will be little progress for the rest of the year in the negotiations between Mexico, Canada and the United States on a new and “improved” North American Free Trade Agreement. By December, American voters will have elected a new Congress that might have at least one house under Democratic Party control when it convenes next January. And later in 2019, Canadians will hold their parliamentary elections. The electoral calendar often poses challenges for trade negotiators because politicians are loath to make concessions […]

On June 13, members of the lower house of Argentina’s Congress held an all-night debate on a decisive bill that would legalize voluntary abortion through the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy. Over 11 hours into the debate, lawmaker Fernando Iglesias held up a world map color-coded with each country’s stance on abortion. It showed the United States, Australia and most of Europe and Asia in green, signifying pro-choice legislation. South America and Africa were mostly in red, or orange, representing a complete ban or tight restrictions on abortion. “Think about just one other country you want Argentina to look […]

When Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency, nervous commentators warned that he would pursue transactional relations with foreign powers, eschewing America’s traditional values and alliances. To the extent that he has disdained many of the principles that guided U.S. engagement with the world after 1945, they were correct. But the Trump administration has also proved strikingly averse to genuinely transactional diplomacy, if you define that term as making and delivering concrete bargains that all sides can afford. Foreign diplomats, not least among U.S. allies, have made strenuous efforts to satisfy the president’s widely publicized love of deal-making. Rather than simply […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. Last week, the Pakistani daily Dawn reported that its distributors and vendors were experiencing harassment and intimidation in several cities to prevent them from delivering the paper to subscribers. That followed an incident in April, in which the country’s largest television channel, Geo, was blocked by its cable operators across 80 percent of the country. Many in Pakistan saw the hand of the military behind the incidents. In an email interview, Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program […]

Following last week’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.S. President Donald Trump trumpeted the potential for economic development in a country that most of the world has long considered a pariah. “Think of it from a real estate perspective,” Trump said, suggesting that instead of building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, North Korea could have “the best hotels in the world.” While it is easy to attribute this seemingly peculiar position to Trump’s inexperience at statecraft, it actually runs deeper than that. It is one more manifestation of the enduring difficulty Americans have understanding how other cultures […]

What many have long viewed as one of the most ridiculous disputes in international politics may finally come to an end, thanks to an agreement reached last week. Following months of quiet negotiations with neighboring Greece, Macedonia announced it will change its name. If all goes to plan, by the end of the year, the country will cease to be the Republic of Macedonia or the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as it is officially known at the United Nations. Instead, it will become the Republic of North Macedonia. The name issue emerged with the collapse of Yugoslavia in the […]

Last Sunday, Colombians elected their next president in a second round run-off, delivering a strong victory for the conservative candidate, Ivan Duque, as the polls had predicted. That the outcome was largely expected in no way diminishes the historic significance of the election, and it does nothing to ease the complexity of the challenge facing the man some are calling Colombia’s Emmanuel Macron, a young, little-known figure who rose from relative obscurity, vowing to bring change. The comparison to the French president is overdone. Like Macron, Colombia’s president-elect faces high expectations. On the economic front, the center-right Duque, who worked […]

Bogota—Colombia’s new president-elect, Ivan Duque, has promised to unite a divided country behind his plans to toughen the landmark peace accord with the former FARC guerrillas when he takes office later this year. The right-wing former senator comfortably won Sunday’s run-off election with 54 percent of the vote against his leftist rival, Gustavo Petro, who garnered 42 percent. Duque, who will turn 42 just before taking office on Aug. 8, will be the youngest elected head of state in Colombia’s 132-year history as a republic. His running mate, Martha Lucia Ramirez, who is a former minister of defense, will be […]

Since his elevation to the presidency following the November 2017 military intervention that removed Zimbabwe’s longtime ruler Robert Mugabe from power, Emmerson Mnangagwa has embarked upon a global charm offensive. This has been designed to restore the country’s reputation, which was badly battered by the turmoil triggered by Mugabe’s violent land seizures; repression of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC; and a series of rigged elections. In stark contrast to the belligerent anti-imperialist rhetoric of Mugabe, Mnangagwa has adopted the vocabulary of “reform” while seeking to build bridges to previous adversaries such as Britain and […]