Domestic Politics Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Facing record floods that have killed more than 100 people and displaced tens of thousands more, Sudan’s government just declared a three-month state of emergency. Already contending with COVID-19 and a flailing economy, a faltering response to this natural disaster threatens to further destabilize the country’s fragile transitional government. Unusually heavy seasonal rains across the region have caused the Nile River to rise nearly six feet in some parts of Sudan and brought floodwaters to 16 of the country’s 18 states. At […]

MEXICO CITY—Every weekday at 7 a.m., President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador holds a press conference at the National Palace here in Mexico’s capital. Known as the “mananera,” the marathon sessions set the news cycle, but also function similarly to President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, offering opportunities for Lopez Obrador to troll opponents and rally supporters as he pontificates for two hours to a blurry-eyed press corps. Last month, Lopez Obrador, who is popularly known as AMLO, raised eyebrows at one of these events when he suggested that the public should know the full details of then-confidential corruption allegations made by […]

Among the remarkable, unexpected developments during the coronavirus pandemic is one that may seem arcane to most people, but is nevertheless loaded with significance: the steep drop in the strength of the U.S. dollar. Fluctuations in currency markets respond to multiple factors, to be sure, but the effectiveness of government policy is unquestionably one of them. A close look at the behavior of currency markets over the past six months strongly suggests that the sinking fortunes of the once-reliable greenback represent a global vote of no-confidence in the actions of the current U.S. government. Early in the pandemic, financial markets […]

Thai students and other activists have staged a series of escalating pro-democracy protests in recent months, drawing some of the biggest crowds since the country’s last coup in 2014. Their demands initially focused on constitutional reforms and new elections, after last year’s vote was widely seen as skewed toward a party aligned with the military. The demonstrators also called for an impartial investigation into the apparent abductions and murders of anti-government activists living abroad. Several Thai dissidents who had been living in Laos disappeared last year, while the bodies of others were found in the Mekong River, disemboweled and filled […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Authorities have detained at least 23 people in China’s Inner Mongolia region following protests last week against new rules requiring classes in primary and secondary schools to be taught in Mandarin, rather than Mongolian. Activists are warning of a broader campaign to chip away at Mongolian cultural identity, and based on recent reports from the region, a strict crackdown on ethnic Mongol communities is already underway. The “bilingual education” program in Inner Mongolia, announced just days before it was […]

When al-Qaida targeted the centers of American financial and military power on 9/11, it believed that most of the world would welcome seeing the United States knocked down from its perch of power. Whether by accident or by design, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida’s leader and founder, had formulated his strategy based on an interpretation of classical realist theory, predicting that countries seeking to balance against American hegemony would be disinclined to get involved in any conflict that followed the attacks. Instead, while the ruins of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon still smoldered, leaders around the world pledged their […]

Though changes in trade policy create winners and losers within a given country, the net effect of lowering import tariffs is generally positive for the country’s economy as a whole. Now, however, tariffs are already low, so the trade agenda involves mostly addressing regulatory and other “technical” barriers to trade generated by countries’ domestic policies, with a core principle of international trade rules being to ensure that these domestic policies do not discriminate against imports. But using legally binding trade agreements to influence the substance of policies that apply to both imports and domestic products alike can create friction between […]

In the early hours of Aug. 19, five men in various shades and styles of military fatigues took to Mali’s national TV station to introduce themselves. The mid-ranking officers had begun the previous day with a mutiny in the garrison town of Kati and ended it by arresting the president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, in the capital, Bamako. Malians had been glued to their TV sets for hours. First, they watched a detained Keita offer his resignation and dissolve the Malian government on live TV. Then, they met the anonymous men in berets who were now in charge—and still are. Calling […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. In an effort to preempt a damning report on massive overpricing and potential fraud in the country’s $26 billion COVID-19 response, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa moved to crack down on corruption within the ruling African National Congress this week. Analysts see it as Ramaphosa’s attempt to finally seize control of a party plagued by graft and the legacy of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. Following a weekend meeting of the ANC’s executive committee, Ramaphosa announced that party officials charged with corruption must […]

When Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to power as prime minister in July last year, he had a familiar pitch to Greeks. In opposition to the populist, left-wing government under the Syriza party, he offered an economically liberal and technocratic program that would attract foreign investment and do away with many of the ailments that have plagued Greece’s state machinery for decades. A year later, though, things are not where Mitsotakis hoped they would be. The COVID-19 pandemic derailed not just his economic plans, but the global economy as a whole. He now faces some all-too familiar economic and political problems in […]

It was probably just a matter of time before Bolivia’s response to the coronavirus became viscerally polarized. With an unelected interim government appearing to overstep its mandate and repeatedly pushing back new elections, and an opposition embittered by the ousting of the previous president, Evo Morales, over alleged electoral fraud, the Andean nation was already desperately divided before being hit by the pandemic. Now, however, Bolivia is mired in a partisan fight over who is responsible for the deaths of COVID-19 patients due to dire shortages of oxygen in hospitals. The trigger came last month when supporters of Morales blockaded […]

Since early 2019, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been governed by an uneasy coalition built around President Felix Tshisekedi and his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, who ruled the country for 18 years until finally agreeing to step down after the 2018 election. Until recently, tensions between Tshisekedi and Kabila only rarely spilled over into public view. But a recent disagreement, over who to appoint as the chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission, has taken the feud to a new level. In July, the National Assembly—dominated by Kabila’s coalition, the Common Front for Congo, or FCC—nominated Ronsard Malonda, a Kabila […]

On July 24, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined thousands of worshippers in the streets around the historic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul for a doubly symbolic moment. Surrounded by a swarm of politicians, soldiers, security forces and imams, the Turkish leader made his way into the giant, former Byzantine cathedral through doors once hammered open by conquering Ottoman soldiers in 1453. Inside, he read out the namaz, or Muslim prayer, formally turning the 1,500-year-old building back into a mosque. In doing so, Erdogan was turning the page on nine decades of recent history, during which this extraordinary structure and UNESCO […]