Domestic Politics Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. On Friday, Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet was denied entry into Hong Kong, only a month after authorities there declined to renew his work visa, ostensibly in retaliation for Mallet’s involvement in hosting an event that featured a political activist who supports Hong Kong’s independence from China. In an interview with WPR, Cedric Alviani, the East Asia bureau chief for Reporters Without Borders, known as RSF, explains why journalists and observers are increasingly concerned about a push by Chinese […]

AARHUS, Denmark—To headmaster Karen Jessen, the school she runs embodies the best of Denmark. Sitting on the western edge of Aarhus, the country’s second-largest city, the school, known as Sødalskolen, or “Lake Valley School,” serves students from the ages of 6 to 16 from two starkly different neighborhoods. To the west of the school is Brabrand, a sprawling district of semi-detached and standalone homes belonging to a mostly white and affluent Danish population. And to the north is Gellerup, an area dominated by social housing in which up to 80 percent of the population are of non-Danish descent and incomes […]

Late last week, the Trump administration declared in a proclamation that it would deny asylum applications to anyone who entered the country through illegal ports of entry, even though it has been clear for months that asylum-seekers are being denied access at official ports of entry. It was the latest attempt by the administration to discourage migrants, primarily from Central America, from coming to the United States. In the recent pre-election fervor, President Donald Trump likened the caravan of Central Americans, which is slowly making its way north from Honduras and into southern Mexico, to an invasion. Yet the latest […]

Trade policy had a high profile in the run-up to last week’s midterm elections in the United States. With a blue wave in the House of Representatives and in many states, even as Republicans added to their majority in the Senate, two obvious questions arise. Did the widening trade war with China, and the narrower disputes with Europe and others over steel and aluminum, influence the outcome? And how will Democratic control of the House of Representatives affect U.S. trade policy for at least the next two years? On the first question, it is difficult to detect a clear pattern […]

Violent protests swept across Pakistan earlier this month in response to the Supreme Court’s acquittal of Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman who spent eight years on death row for blasphemy. The multi-day protests, organized by the hard-line Islamist political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, or TLP, subsided only after the government agreed to prevent Bibi from leaving the country. In an interview with WPR, Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., discusses Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws and the impact of the Bibi case on […]

GRANADA, Spain—When Mariano Rajoy stepped down as prime minister in June in the wake of a no-confidence vote over a series of high-profile corruption scandals within his conservative Popular Party, hopes were high for his successor, Pedro Sanchez. The leader of the leftist opposition, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, or PSOE, Sanchez lost no time making moves to raise the domestic and international profile of his new administration. First, he appointed a Cabinet primarily staffed by women—a historic first in Spain, and unusual in the whole of Europe. He then garnered international praise by allowing a ship carrying migrants rescued […]

The small Himalayan nation of Bhutan held national elections this fall for the third time since implementing multiparty democracy in 2008. As in the previous vote, in 2013, the incumbent party was ousted. Lotay Tshering, leader of the victorious Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa party, was sworn in as prime minister on Wednesday. He will now seek to follow through on campaign promises to improve social services and tackle Bhutan’s growing income gap. On the foreign policy front, the new government is expected to try to reduce its reliance on neighboring India, even as China is looking to expand its influence in […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. For at least the past six months, France has been pushing for elections to be held in Libya by the end of this year. At a conference in Paris in May, representatives of various Libyan factions settled on a date: Dec. 10. Yet there have always been questions about whether this was even remotely realistic. Seven years after former dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed, Libya remains highly unstable, its politics organized around the rivalry between the United […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the foreign policy implications of the U.S. midterm congressional elections. For the Report, Dan Hancox talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about the stark social realities behind London’s drill music scene and why the music’s violent lyrical themes aren’t solely to blame for the city’s recent rash of knife attacks and violent crime. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight […]

The U.S. government is alarmed at the rates of cocaine production in the two countries. While it is working with the Peruvian government to tackle the problem, the issue has only further divided the United States and Bolivia. The international fight against drug trafficking continues to go poorly in South America’s Andean region, and signs suggest it won’t be improving anytime soon. New figures released this month by the United States show that Peru and Bolivia have stalled, if not taken steps backward, in their attempts to eradicate prolific cocaine production within their borders. Last year, Peru’s production of pure […]

The shock election of 93-year-old Mahathir Mohamad for a second stint as Malaysia’s prime minister last May generated a sense of unease in the corridors of power in Beijing. In tough rhetoric on the campaign trail, Mahathir had accused his predecessor, Najib Razak, of ceding Malaysia’s sovereignty to China by accepting billions of dollars in Chinese loans to finance large-scale infrastructure projects. Mahathir warned that Malaysia’s “freedom would be affected if we are going to owe such a large sum to any one country,” and he voiced fears that Najib appeared willing to “give up” the nation’s territorial claims in […]

Can Africa’s democracies overcome the ‘president-for-life’ phenomenon, or is democracy in Africa doomed to fade? Find out more when you subscribe to World Politics Review (WPR). Late last year, Uganda removed a constitutional measure that barred anyone older than 75 from running for president, clearing the way for long-time President Yoweri Moseveni, 73 years old, to remain in office after his current term ends. But the aggressive and occasionally ham-handed tactics of Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement, or NRM, are giving rise to a new generation of opposition leaders who are set on changing this common approach to undermining democracy […]

MEXICO CITY—Last week, the spokesperson for Mexico’s president-elect, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, announced the cancellation of a lavish new airport in Mexico City, a $13.3 billion project that was already under construction. The decision came after an informal four-day referendum in which 70 percent of voters backed scrapping the project. “The decision taken by the citizens is democratic, rational and efficient,” Lopez Obrador said. “The people decided.” Yet it hardly reflected the full Mexican electorate, as less than 2 percent of Mexico’s eligible voters participated in the ballot, which Lopez Obrador’s own party and its allies had organized. The announcement […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR’s newsletter and engagement editor, Benjamin Wilhelm, curates the top news and analysis from China written by the experts who follow it. President Xi Jinping’s opening speech to the first-ever China International Import Expo in Shanghai on Monday was loaded with promises and reassurances. Seeking to convince the world of China’s openness to foreign goods and services, Xi portrayed himself as a staunch advocate for globalization. The address was delivered to an audience that included political and business leaders from 172 countries, but it was just as notable for who was missing in Shanghai and what […]

American voters delivered the House of Representatives to the Democratic Party in yesterday’s midterm congressional elections, issuing a measured rebuke of President Donald Trump’s divisive and inflammatory style of politics. Trump himself had turned the elections into a referendum on his personal brand, putting himself front and center while stumping energetically for Republican candidates nationwide over the last few weeks of the campaign. Despite strong economic growth and historically low unemployment, however, voters in key districts—including many in the usually Republican suburbs—made it clear that the laws of political gravity still exist, and that even Trump cannot violate them indefinitely. […]

A new type of rap music famous for its bleak, violent lyrics has frequently been cited as a factor contributing to a resurgent London crime wave. Yet amid all this concern about the music, known as “drill,” little attention is being paid to the harsh socioeconomic realities facing the men and boys creating it. LONDON—In late August, this city achieved a grim milestone: The Metropolitan Police announced they were investigating the 100th “violent death” recorded since the start of the year. Well before that case was recorded, a spate of violent crime in London had already sparked a lot of […]

The Arab countries of the Persian Gulf are in a period of unusual turbulence. It’s not their declared enemy, Iran, that is causing the trouble, but the secondary effects of overly ambitious and high-risk policy choices by a new generation of leaders from Riyadh to Abu Dhabi. Their major security partners, including the United States, are worried that regional coordination and cooperation have become harder, with each Gulf state distracted by local crises, while Russia and Iran are benefiting from the disarray. It raises longer-term concerns about the future of their regional bloc, the Gulf Cooperation Council, which has never […]