Domestic Politics Archive

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only Weekly Wrap-Up newsletter, which uses relevant WPR coverage to provide background and context to the week’s top stories. Subscribe to receive it by email every Saturday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. For decades, the president of Belarus, known as “Europe’s last dictator,” has been a thorn in the side of the continent’s democracies. But the threat Alexander Lukashenko poses to European security suddenly grew more serious Sunday, when his security forces—with the help of a transparently false cover […]

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Africa Watch, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about the African continent. Subscribe to receive it by email every Friday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. The military officer who overthrew Mali’s elected government last year, Col. Assimi Goita, this week deposed the civilian president and prime minister of the transitional authority he helped install in the aftermath of the coup, creating a new political crisis in the West […]

President Joe Biden’s administration is ramping up its diplomatic efforts to address what it calls the “root causes” of Central America’s migration crisis. Early next month, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Guatemala—part of a two-country trip that also includes a stop in Mexico—in hopes of making progress on efforts to address the poverty, violence and corruption that force Central Americans to flee the region. But while the administration’s approach to Central America has some promising elements overall, it faces stiff headwinds in the region. Last week, Congress released a list of 16 current and former Central American […]

Two years into the three-year mandate of a transitional authority tasked with governing a long-troubled corner of the southern Philippines, its chief minister, Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, is pushing to extend the term of his interim administration. The transitional authority’s 80 members were appointed to lead the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, or BARMM, in 2019, as part of a peace deal the Philippine government signed with Muslim rebels fighting for independence in Mindanao. The extension, if approved, would postpone a scheduled vote for the region’s first democratically elected parliament from May 2022, as originally foreseen by the transition […]

The cease-fire that entered into force last Friday brought an end to 11 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas, leaving behind at least 248 Palestinian and 12 Israeli dead, as well as untold destruction in Gaza. Yet even as the fragile truce is holding thus far, the power struggle between the two largest Palestinian parties—Hamas and its rival, Fatah—seems poised to only intensify. The most recent round of violence was the fourth since 2007, when Hamas violently wrested control of Gaza after winning elections the previous year. It took place against the backdrop of an intense political crisis triggered […]

In last week’s episode of “America Competing with a Rising China,” the geopolitical equivalent of a TV series, Joe Biden took the wheel of a Ford truck and all but burned rubber as he pulled away from reporters who had come to witness the stunt. Biden’s visit came on the eve of Ford’s announcement of a new, all-electric version of its model F-150, the most popular motor vehicle in the United States, and he used it to enlist the automaker’s innovations in his ongoing campaign to prove not just that “America is Back,” whatever that means, but that the country […]

As U.S. troops begin what may be their final withdrawal from Afghanistan, no third country will be affected by their departure as much as Pakistan, which shares a long, porous border with Afghanistan, hosts much of the Taliban leadership as well as millions of Afghan refugees, and faces threats from Pakistani militants based there. For Pakistan, America has been both a partner and a strategic competitor in Afghanistan. Notionally, the U.S. exit presents Islamabad with an opportunity to proactively shape Kabul’s political future in its favor. But in reality, a post-withdrawal Afghanistan without an internationally backed, intra-Afghan accord offers far […]

Cyril Ramaphosa’s rise to the South African presidency in 2018 generated considerable optimism that his leadership would bring a more enlightened approach to policy, both domestic and foreign. His talk of a “new dawn” and his calls for a return to the values of Nelson Mandela represented an implicit repudiation of his two immediate predecessors, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. In the case of the latter, Ramaphosa also promised an end to the rampant corruption and state capture that characterized Zuma’s decade in office. Human rights organizations viewed Ramaphosa’s presidency as an opportunity for a policy reset, and they encouraged […]

This is the web version of our subscriber-only Weekly Wrap-Up newsletter, which uses relevant WPR coverage to provide background and context to the week’s top stories. Subscribe to receive it by email every Saturday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. What matters in global affairs? It’s a question that, as the editor-in-chief of World Politics Review, I keep constantly in mind, because our job at WPR is to help our readers answer it, week in and week out. At times, the answer is right in front of us: the […]

Something interesting is happening in Venezuela. Just as the rest of the world risked becoming resigned to a stalemate in that failed nation’s political crisis, with essentially no viable path to a solution, a sudden flurry of activity suggests a possible way forward. Even if experience tells us a strong dose of skepticism is warranted when it comes to the Venezuelan regime’s real intentions, the recent developments must be taken seriously. The key event came last week, via Twitter. Opposition leader Juan Guaido released a video calling for talks with the government of President Nicolas Maduro in pursuit of a […]

The two candidates facing off in Peru’s upcoming presidential run-off election, Keiko Fujimori and Pedro Castillo, couldn’t be further apart ideologically. Castillo, who belongs to a party that describes itself as Marxist, is calling for a radical overhaul of Peru’s economic and constitutional systems. Fujimori, on the other hand, wants to deepen the free-market model installed under the authoritarian presidency of her father, Alberto Fujimori, in the 1990s. But beyond the obvious differences, the candidates share one overlooked similarity: Both owe big debts to political mentors currently in jail for corruption, whom they are eager to shield from justice. Whoever […]

In 1985, my parents were taken to court in Tehran by a tenant who was trying to stop them from selling a property he was renting from them at the time. My parents were surprised to learn about the lawsuit. After all, they had given the tenant several months to vacate. He had no legitimate legal argument. On the day of the hearing, when it was the tenant’s turn to present his case, he pointed at my parents and shrilly declared that they were communists. For a moment, the room fell silent. Then my parents’ lawyer calmly closed his legal […]

KAMPALA, Uganda—On May 12, after 35 years in office, Yoweri Museveni was sworn in for his sixth elected term as president of Uganda. The ceremony marked the end of a year-long ritual centered on what was misleadingly called an “election.” Shots were fired, money changed hands and then, almost as an afterthought, Ugandans went to the polls in mid-January. In the preceding and subsequent months, opposition supporters have been harassed, beaten, abducted, tortured and even killed. The process is better understood as a manifestation of power than as a choice about who wields it. The 2021 election did not unseat […]

Since February 2019, when President Jovenel Moise was implicated in the largest corruption scandal Haiti has ever known, the country has been mired in a violent crisis with political, economic and constitutional dimensions. Instead of heeding protesters’ demands to step down or addressing the allegations against him, Moise formed alliances with armed gangs that continue to terrorize the population and quash anti-government demonstrations. Moise, who has been ruling by decree since July 2018 due to his inability to form a government, has also eviscerated the independent institutions that could hold him and his allies accountable. He is clinging to power […]

As soon as the global magnitude of the coronavirus pandemic started to become evident in the early part of last year, the obvious corollary became inescapable: COVID-19 would have far-reaching political impact around the world. One of the places where the political ramifications of the crisis—or, more precisely, the consequences of its mismanagement by authorities—are becoming more pronounced is Central Europe, a region that in recent years has drifted steadily in an authoritarian, illiberal direction. While a steady erosion of democratic practices has been on display across much of the globe over the past 15 years, the pattern in Central […]

Germany’s Green party has surged in public opinion polling ahead of general elections this fall, indicating it is likely to be part of the country’s next coalition government. On the Trend Lines podcast this week, Claudia Major, head of the international security research division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, joined WPR’s Elliot Waldman to talk about how the Greens’ views on foreign policy have evolved in recent years and how they fit into the German political mainstream. Listen to the full interview with Claudia Major here: If you like what you hear, subscribe to […]

Voters in Germany will go to the polls in September for elections that will be unusually consequential for the country’s foreign and defense policy. Chancellor Angela Merkel is retiring after almost 16 years in the position, and three major parties recently announced their candidates to replace her. Much attention has focused on one of the candidates in particular: Annalena Baerbock of the Green party, which is surging in popularity and is likely to enter government as part of a coalition in the fall. This could allow the Greens to exercise influence over decision-making in Berlin. What would that mean for […]