Domestic Politics Archive

Just like in 2017 and 2018, many of the most important stories around the world in 2019 were drowned out by the latest tweet, tirade or tantrum from U.S. President Donald Trump. In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Freddy Deknatel and Elliot Waldman talk about some of the big under-covered trends of the year, from the deterioration of U.S. alliances in East Asia to the fate of protest movements that rocked the Middle East. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter […]

ISTANBUL—A German woman suspected of supporting the Islamic State was repatriated from Syria along with her three children last month, in the first case of an adult European ISIS member brought home through official channels. On Nov. 22, the family was released from the overcrowded detention camp in northern Syria where they’d lived for almost a year and transferred to the Iraqi city of Erbil, where they boarded a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. The mother, known only as Laura H., had her passport confiscated upon arrival. She cannot leave Germany, as she is being investigated for belonging to a terrorist […]

Two months into his second term, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, widely known as Jokowi, has announced some bold new economic plans. He has vowed to push through major legislation on deregulation—modeled on the Trump administration’s agenda in Washington—and launch a staggering number of new infrastructure projects. It is all part of a push to attract foreign investment, which has provoked backlashes in Indonesia before, but which he said “no one should be allergic to” in a speech after winning reelection. Whether Jokowi can implement this economic agenda remains unclear. He has built a vast, 50-member Cabinet, including vice ministers, from […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Gambians are not going to let President Adama Barrow forget his promise. When Barrow, then largely a political unknown, challenged longtime autocrat Yahya Jammeh in the 2016 presidential race, he pledged that, if he won, he would run a three-year provisional government before calling new elections. But backing off that promise, Barrow recently said he will serve a full five-year term until 2021, sparking protests. Gambians took to the streets of the capital, Banjul, this week in outrage over his decision. Though […]

If there is one big takeaway from The Washington Post’s publication of thousands of pages of documents detailing the extent of policy failures in Afghanistan, it is the great lengths that it takes to wake the American public up to the costs of pursuing a war without a strategy. As The Post’s examination of interviews produced as part of a wide-ranging and years-long review of U.S. policy by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, known as SIGAR, clearly shows, few officials charged with leading the war effort were willing to openly admit that most of what […]

Is there any current world leader who faces a more imposing set of challenges than Sudan’s prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok? Four months after taking charge of a transitional government that was formed in the wake of Sudan’s popular revolution, Hamdok—a veteran diplomat with a doctorate in economics—has the unenviable task of repairing a divided, unstable and economically ravaged country with both hands tied behind his back. He is constrained by everyone from partners in the security forces who are resistant to change, to former regime hard-liners, to an expectant Sudanese public, as well as an international community that has offered […]

One region of the world embodies the global drift toward autocracy more than any other: Eastern Europe. The erosion of liberal democracy in countries that emerged from behind the Iron Curtain 30 years ago has seemed nearly unstoppable, and particularly disheartening given the heartfelt enthusiasm with which populations embraced the collapse of communist dictatorships. But now, after watching demagogues rise to power, liberal democrats are joining forces, ready to counterattack. In the process, they are offering a way for their frustrated backers in the European Union to support them. Earlier this week, the mayors of Warsaw, Budapest, Prague and Bratislava […]

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference wrapped up Sunday in Madrid, after nearly two weeks of wrangling. Despite a two-day extension that made this the longest round of U.N. climate talks ever, the meeting was a massive failure. Instead of setting more ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, negotiators went home mostly empty-handed, having punted the most difficult climate-related questions to next year’s conference in Glasgow, Scotland. “The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared in a tweet Sunday. The […]

Guinea-Bissau will hold a runoff presidential election later this month, after a first round of voting in late November failed to produce a clear winner. The country has been mired in a long-running political crisis under President Jose Mario Vaz, who failed to advance to the second round. Instead, two of Vaz’s former prime ministers, Domingos Simoes Pereira and Umaro Embalo, will vie for the presidency on Dec. 29. The first stage of the election was mostly fair and peaceful—a relief for a country with a long history of political violence. In an email interview with WPR, Alex Vines, head […]

LONDON—In the weeks leading up to the British general election last Thursday, all the opinion polls suggested that the Conservative Party was on course for a large parliamentary majority, with the Tories enjoying an average lead of 10 points over the opposition Labour Party. Yet despite the polls having pointed in that direction all along, few observers expected such a crushing victory. In the end, the Conservatives took 365 seats, handing them an 80-seat majority and dealing Labour its most brutal defeat since 1935. But it isn’t simply the scale of the Tories’ victory that provoked disbelief. It was the […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein and Elliot Waldman talk about the reasons behind Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s surprise victory in this week’s elections in the U.K. They also discuss the implications of the results for the United Kingdom’s future cohesion, its Brexit negotiations with the European Union and the 2020 presidential election in the United States. 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 to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free […]

Demonstrators have taken to the streets over the past three weeks in a series of massive antigovernment rallies in Colombia, making it the latest Latin American country to be convulsed by protests. While the ongoing unrest has not yet reached the scale of other recent crises elsewhere in the region, such as Bolivia or Chile, it nonetheless poses a stiff challenge to conservative President Ivan Duque, who has come under criticism in recent months for his unpopular economic and security policies. The demonstrations began with a general strike on Nov. 21, with hundreds of thousands of people gathering in cities […]

Sri Lanka has a tendency to flow in and out of global headlines in one of two ways. After a decades-long civil war between the government and ethnic Tamil separatists ended in 2009, it has periodically burst into the news, usually as a result of a paroxysm of violence. The rest of the time, during periods of calm, Sri Lanka datelines tend to arrive with glossy stories about tourism to an island nation rich in natural beauty. Which Sri Lanka appears in headlines in the years to come will depend to a large degree on the ramifications of the recent […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. The Financial Times reported this week that China has ordered “all government offices and public institutions to remove foreign computer equipment and software within three years.” The move, part of China’s broader push to reduce its reliance on U.S. technology, is a significant step toward the decoupling of the world’s two largest economies. The Communist Party directive was issued earlier this year. It is “the first publicly known instruction with specific targets given to Chinese buyers to switch to […]

Operation Car Wash, or Lava Jato as it is known in Brazil, is widely regarded as the biggest corruption investigation in history. It has ensnared some of the biggest and most powerful Brazilian companies, and its investigators have brought charges against hundreds of businessmen, officials and politicians, including former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula. Its proponents say that Lava Jato has been a welcome cleansing force in a graft-ridden part of the world, but its impartiality has been called into question. According to hacked messages published by the online investigative news outlet The Intercept earlier […]

For 10 months, weekly mass protests have rocked Algeria, as demonstrators have taken to the streets with sweeping demands that the country’s entire entrenched regime step aside. This standoff between protesters and Algeria’s generals is about to enter a new phase with Thursday’s presidential election. Rather than a genuine chance to elect a new government, the vote, forced through by the generals over popular objections, is an attempt to rebuild the political structure that Algerians have been trying to bring down since their protest movement erupted in February: a military dictatorship with a civilian façade. The results of the election […]

The transportation strikes and labor protests that have paralyzed France for the past week are proof once again of the gap between President Emmanuel Macron’s lofty international reputation and his domestic fall from grace. Lionized abroad as a young, dynamic outsider, courageous reformer and liberal champion, Macron is decried at home for his tone-deaf arrogance, illiberal imperiousness and seeming disregard for France’s less fortunate and most vulnerable citizens. The strikes and demonstrations are just the beginning of what promises to be a lengthy fight over Macron’s plans to reform France’s pension system. Two years ago, Macron faced down the unions […]