Domestic Politics Archive

In 2019, the year before the coronavirus pandemic began, a series of popular uprisings erupted in a large number of countries. That included Chile, where public discontent finally boiled over following an increase in public transportation prices. After dozens had been killed in the unrest, the Chilean government took the protesters’ grievances seriously, and then-President Sebastian Pinera agreed to a dramatic course of action: The country would rewrite its constitution. The following year, in the middle of the pandemic, nearly 80 percent of Chilean voters agreed to the plan in a national referendum. The country was jubilant. Now, nearly three years after those initial protests, the proposed new […]

To prominent Asia watchers and policymakers, making sense of the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has involved going beyond the man himself to reflect on the politics of the Asia he envisioned. In practice, that means that not only has Abe the man been mourned, but his legacy lauded, too. Matt Pottinger, the former White House coordinator for Asia policy under then-U.S. President Donald Trump, summed up the general sentiment in an op-ed that described Abe as having popularized the idea of a “free and open Indo-Pacific” among regional states wary of China’s rise, turning it into a unifying […]

As Boris Johnson announced his resignation as leader of the Conservative Party and departure as British prime minister on a warm Thursday afternoon last week, the frantic world of British politics was already speculating about who his successor might be. Now, with former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and State Minister for Trade Penny Mordaunt looking like the most viable candidates to lead the Tories, a vicious leadership battle has gained momentum. Yet for all this sound and fury, there has been little concrete disagreement on policy among these contenders. At most, the tensions within the Tory […]

This spring, Malta was crowned the top European country for LGBTQ rights and freedoms by the annual ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Index for the seventh year in a row. The Mediterranean island country didn’t just win the top spot. It dominated the rankings, with a score of 92 percent—nearly 20 points above its nearest competitor, Denmark. This recognition did not come to Malta via a high-priced PR campaign or effort to “brand” Malta as the LGBTQ dream destination. Rather, it is the result of good policymaking that ensures rights for LGBTQ people on the three islands that make up the country. However, given that […]

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, headlines spread claiming that a new iron curtain had fallen across Europe. Russia’s economic and political isolation, they claimed, had come hand-in-hand with digital isolation. As the United States and its allies introduced technological sanctions against Russia, numerous Western tech companies also stopped doing business there, making their products and services unavailable to Russians. At the same time, the Russian state had moved quickly to block any websites that offered information about the war, especially those that criticized the Kremlin’s actions. It is well-known that Russian President Vladimir Putin sees an open and […]

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, have agreed to a deescalation process between their two countries following bilateral talks last week to address rising tensions on their mutual border. The two leaders held the talks in Luanda, Angola’s capital, at a tripartite summit hosted by Angolan President Joao Lourenco, who was appointed by the African Union to mediate. In a statement released on Twitter, the Congolese presidency said that “the summit aimed to restore trust between the two neighboring countries,” adding that their process of deescalation will be achieved by reviving the joint Congo-Rwanda joint commission, which has […]

In the second round of Colombia’s election last month, voters faced a choice between Gustavo Petro, a far-left former guerrilla, and Rodolfo Hernandez, a candidate regularly described as a “right-wing populist.” Many citizens who define themselves as centrist and wanted to vote for a moderate candidate found themselves struggling to decide which of these extremes was worse. Second-round polarization has become a common theme in Latin American presidential elections. In the past year, presidential candidates from ideological extremes in Chile, Peru and Colombia made it to second-round votes, while more traditional and centrist candidates missed the cut by large margins. […]

On June 30, the government of Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso reached an agreement with the country’s leading Indigenous organization, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, or Conaie, and other civil society organizations to bring an end to social protests that had ground the country to a standstill for 18 days. The protests, which began in rural areas and later converged on Quito, the capital, were triggered by rising fuel prices and escalating inflation. But they took place against the backdrop of a surge in violent crime linked with drug trafficking, exacerbated by a deteriorating justice system limiting the government’s efforts to […]

Gustavo Petro, who once fought against the Colombian state as a member of the rebel group M-19, will become the first leftist president in the country’s modern history when he is inaugurated on Aug. 7. He has promised to make radical reforms to Colombia’s military and police forces, which have a checkered history of human rights abuses, corruption and even ties to criminal groups, immediately upon taking office. Petro himself admits the stakes are high, saying that if he fails to implement his vision, “darkness will ravage” any hope the country has at achieving real peace. But to effect the structural changes he has promised, Petro […]

After having survived months of seemingly unending controversies and scandals, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced today that he is stepping down as the leader of the ruling Conservative Party. Until just days ago, Johnson appeared to be untouchable. But a sex scandal in which he was not personally involved led to new revelations of his having lied about what he knew and when, becoming the straw that broke the camel’s back. The big question for the Tories now is, Who will succeed Johnson as party leader and prime minister? Before Johnson’s resignation, the U.K. spent the better part of […]

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, was dissolved last Thursday, triggering new elections in November that will be the country’s fifth in four years. The elections, which extend an unprecedented streak of instability in Israel’s electoral politics, became inevitable after the coalition government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett lost its razor-thin majority a little over a year after it took office. Billed as the “government of change,” the unwieldy coalition that Bennett helmed comprised parties from across the political spectrum, held together only by the common interest of unseating Bennett’s predecessor, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Netanyahu was a decisive figure […]

Kenyans will head to the polls on Aug. 9 in a presidential election that will usher in a transition after President Uhuru Kenyatta’s two terms in office. Kenya has come a long way since 2007, when claims of electoral fraud led to serious violence. Nevertheless, the risk of instability this year is still nontrivial.

Chinese President Xi Jinping toured Wuhan last week in what amounted to a victory lap, triumphantly walking through production facilities and industrial sectors in the city that was the coronavirus pandemic’s Ground Zero when it emerged in December 2019. Xi’s visit was significant for two key, if distinct, reasons. One was to inspect “Optics Valley,” a burgeoning technology hub that symbolizes China’s ambitions to develop home-grown innovation and boost self-reliance. As with many of his visits to manufacturing facilities and incubators for critical technology sectors across China, Xi took photos with key personnel at the manufacturing sites and spoke about […]

In the days before Ukraine’s European Union candidate status was confirmed on June 23, a satirical clip from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s previous career as a comic actor began to circulate on social media. In a scene from the television series “Servant of the People”—in which Zelenskyy played a schoolteacher who accidentally becomes Ukrainian president, not long before Zelenskyy himself became president in real life—he takes a call from then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel. After initially congratulating Zelenskyy’s character for Ukraine’s accession to the EU, Merkel—who remains an off-screen voice heard only through the phone—suddenly apologizes, realizing she’s made an error: […]

A year ago, in July 2021, a prominent environmentalist was killed in Kenya. Joannah Stutchbury had been a vocal critic of a development project that was about to begin construction in Kiambu forest, a protected area of more than 1,000 acres near Nairobi, the capital. A third-generation Kenyan with British ancestry, Stutchbury had been fighting against the illegal corporate takeover of these lands when she was shot dead while clearing branches outside her home. On the global stage, Kenya has a reputation as a center for wildlife conservation work, boasting 24 national parks, 15 national reserves, six marine parks and […]

Arise Ghana, a Ghanaian political pressure group, organized a two-day protest last week to express the public’s growing anxiety over economic conditions in the country, including unemployment, the rising cost of living and the depreciation of the Ghanaian currency, the cedi. The group called on the government to take “pragmatic steps to alleviate the suffering of the people of Ghana.” During the protests, demonstrators marched to the headquarters of Ghana’s Ministry of Finance, where they presented a petition calling on the ministry to “take urgent steps to ensure that inflation is brought down to the barest minimum to allow the […]

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health rolled back half a century of federally protected reproductive rights and reverted the authority to regulate abortion to the states. The ruling was celebrated by anti-abortion advocates and met with outrage from reproductive justice supporters. At the international level, it has been condemned by United Nations human rights officials and U.S. allies alike. It has also become a propaganda tool for U.S. enemies: The Taliban referred to the ruling to point out U.S. hypocrisy on women’s rights and argue that the sanctions against them should be […]