Domestic Politics Archive

In late February and early March, India and Pakistan engaged in a series of aerial skirmishes after a suicide bombing killed 40 Indian security personnel in the disputed territory of Kashmir. The crisis marked the worst escalation between the two nuclear-armed countries in nearly two decades. In an interview with WPR, Avinash Paliwal, a lecturer and deputy director of the South Asia Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, discusses the longer history of the dispute over Kashmir and what it will take to prevent future crises from escalating. World Politics Review: Recent tensions between India […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion episode of the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, managing editor Frederick Deknatel and associate editor Elliot Waldman look at how Benjamin Netanyahu was able to win a historic fifth term as prime minister of Israel in elections that were held there this week. They assess what Netanyahu’s victory means for Israel’s policies in the region and its relationship with the United States. Other international news items this week that caught the editors’ eyes: Brexit’s delay, Bashir’s ouster in Sudan and South Korean President Moon’s visit to the White House. If you like what […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. For a few days this week, the fate of Sudan’s protest movement seemed to hang in the balance. As large crowds continued their sit-in Tuesday morning outside the army headquarters in Khartoum, they were fired upon by paramilitary troops loyal to President Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power for three decades. Yet these troops soon clashed with soldiers who appeared to be sympathetic to the protesters, highlighting how, as the movement to oust Bashir gained unprecedented momentum, at […]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—In December, nearly 40 men stepped off a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-chartered plane onto a humid tarmac on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the capital of their unfamiliar homeland. It was the first time many of them, who were born in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines to parents fleeing the Khmer Rouge regime, and who grew up in the United States, had ever set foot in Cambodia. Others fled the country as children, with their only memories of Cambodia being the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. The overwhelming majority of these Cambodian deportees came to […]

Since 9/11, any mention of violent extremism usually referred to Salafi jihadism and the likes of al-Qaida and, more recently, the self-styled Islamic State. While not the only type of extremism plaguing the world, the sociopathic brutality and morbid self-publicity of these jihadist groups put them in the spotlight. There had never been anything like them, or so it seemed. In the minds of many people, al-Qaida and its offshoots were the paradigm of violent extremism. Jihadism is far from defeated today, even if the Islamic State has been rolled back in Syria and Iraq. From Boko Haram in Nigeria […]

Prime Minister Hun Sen dissolved Cambodia’s opposition party ahead of 2018 elections to prevent it from repeating its 2013 success. Find out more when you subscribe to World Politics Review (WPR). Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party now utterly dominate Cambodia, after the CPP won control of the entire lower house of parliament in elections in July 2018. The regime had, of course, ensured in advance that the CPP would sweep the vote, the culmination of Hun Sen’s increasingly brazen repression. With political regression all but complete, what is left for the remnants of the Cambodian opposition […]

On March 27, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to the airwaves to make a dramatic announcement: India had successfully shot down one of its own satellites in low-Earth orbit with a missile. Only three other countries have demonstrated that capability: Russia, China and the United States. “India stands tall as a space power,” Modi declared, noting that the technology had been developed indigenously. But Modi’s glee at this demonstration of his country’s technological prowess was not shared by many space experts, who caution that the debris created by the missile test poses a threat to other satellites and spacecraft […]

Like all elections, South Africa’s upcoming national vote on May 8—the country’s fifth ballot since the end of apartheid—will see rival parties waging a struggle to control the narrative and frame the contest in the best possible terms. Given the change in the leadership of the ruling African National Congress in December 2017, that means much of the campaign will focus on President Cyril Ramaphosa and the extent to which he is delivering his promised “new dawn” in South Africa following what he has called the “nine lost years” of Jacob Zuma. Restoring the sense of mission and idealism that […]

The Philippines is set to hold congressional, provincial and local elections on May 13, midway through President Rodrigo Duterte’s six-year term. The polls are widely seen as a referendum on the controversial but still-popular Duterte, who has drawn international condemnation for his repressive tactics and his brutal war on drugs. The key battleground in next month’s elections is the 24-seat Senate, where Duterte-backed candidates are poised to win a majority of the 12 seats up for grabs. In an interview with WPR, Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, discusses the outlook for the elections, […]

BARCELONA, Spain—For the past two years, millions of women and men across Spain have joined in a general strike and protest to mark International Women’s Day, on March 8, pressing for women’s rights and gender equality. Last year, the sheer scale of the demonstrations was stunning, with an estimated 5.3 million Spaniards participating in workplace walkouts. Now, it looks like they will be a yearly occurrence. Not since the anti-austerity protests of the indignados in 2011, which gave rise to a new political party, the far-left Podemos, have so many Spaniards taken to the streets. With a general election planned […]

Since Abiy Ahmed became prime minister of Ethiopia a year ago, domestic and foreign observers have heavily scrutinized his political reforms and, especially, the peace deal he reached last year with Eritrea. But the changes he’s introduced extend farther afield. On the foreign policy front, Abiy has demonstrated a willingness to engage with wealthy Middle Eastern countries on the other side of the Red Sea, dismissing his predecessors’ wariness of becoming entangled in the region’s politics. Evidence of this engagement was first apparent in the role that Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, played in brokering the Eritrea peace deal. It […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Hong Kong’s government introduced revised extradition legislation last Wednesday, going ahead with plans to ease the handover of fugitives to jurisdictions that it does not have extradition treaties with, including China, Taiwan and Macau. Human rights groups and lawyers’ associations in Hong Kong have protested the move, saying that Beijing could use extradition as a weapon against political dissidents or anyone else its justice system deems criminal. Mainland China was deliberately excluded from Hong Kong’s 1997 extradition law, passed […]

Find out more about Kim Jong Un, his rise to power and his rule in North Korea when you subscribe to World Politics Review For nearly a quarter-century, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the North Korean regime’s continued survival has baffled observers. When North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il Sung died, North Korea entered a period of famine that lasted three years and killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of North Korean citizens. Yet the regime carried on under his son, Kim Jong Il, and his grandson, Kim Jong Un, currently leads the country, making it the […]

Comoros’ Supreme Court has certified President Azali Assoumani as the winner of last month’s presidential election with 59 percent of the vote, despite protests from the opposition and serious flaws in the voting process. At least three people were killed in a failed uprising at a military base several days after the election, prompting the United States to withdraw its personnel from the islands. Meanwhile, the opposition has been decimated by a campaign of arrests and intimidation, says Simon Massey, a senior lecturer in international relations at Coventry University. In an interview with WPR, he discusses the possibility of further […]

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia—Since protests swept 42-year-old Abiy Ahmed into power as Ethiopia’s prime minister a year ago, the country has undertaken a dramatic series of changes. Abiy has ended Ethiopia’s two-decade conflict with its neighbor Eritrea, introduced ambitious reforms designed to lessen repression, and vowed to organize Ethiopia’s first free and fair elections. Taken together, these developments from Africa’s youngest head of state amount to an attempted revolution from within Ethiopia’s long-ruling coalition. As Ethiopia remakes itself at home under Abiy, it is also forging a new set of ties with wealthy Middle Eastern nations across the Red Sea, breaking […]

When the European Commission recently attempted to blacklist 23 countries that it accuses of maintaining deficient systems to restrict money laundering and terrorism financing, a technocratic spat quickly escalated into a diplomatic dispute. Though only one element of sweeping reforms intended to strengthen the European Union’s own anti-money laundering regime, the list not only had the predictable effect of enraging countries included on it—such as Saudi Arabia and three U.S. territories—but also provoked insurmountable criticism from within the EU itself. The list was ultimately rejected by 27 of 28 member states after a fierce lobbying campaign, forcing the European Commission […]

President Donald Trump announced late last month that he is cutting off $450 million in U.S. aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, delivering on a previous threat amid news that another migrant caravan was forming in Central America. The move has drawn significant criticism, even from within Trump’s administration. The aid is largely used for social, economic and governance development programs that many consider to be an effective, long-term solution to underlying issues—such as violence, poverty and corruption—that are driving people out of their home countries and toward the United States. Perhaps not unexpectedly, Trump’s attempt to reconcile these […]