Earlier this month, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was in Kenya to discuss trade ties and pledge support for counterterrorism operations in East Africa. In an email interview, Mattia Toaldo, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, discussed Italy’s outreach to Africa. WPR: How extensive are Italy’s ties with Africa, and what are the main areas of cooperation? Mattia Toaldo: After the end of the Cold War, and with development aid money drying up, the Italian presence in sub-Saharan Africa quickly waned. But following a policy review conducted two years ago under then-Foreign Minister Emma Bonino, Italy [...]
Editor’s note: The following article is one of 30 that we’ve selected from our archives to celebrate World Politics Review’s 15th anniversary. You can find the full collection here. Over the past decade, social democratic parties across Western Europe have been in ignominious retreat. The center-left’s electoral decline has been remarkable. Even where social democrats have attained governmental power, often in coalition with other parties, their experience has been unhappy and often quickly followed by defeat. As a result, many commentators insist that social democracy as a social movement and a political tradition has lost its vitality and is destined to [...]
Ever since the end of the colonial period, in 1956 for Morocco and in 1962 for Algeria, France has had a complex and often ambivalent relationship with the two former colonies that formed the core of its North African empire. Social and economic ties have drawn all three countries closer together, but diplomatic tensions, usually involving Algeria, remain. In a recent reversal, however, Morocco has aired resentments over its colonial past after a series of recent spats with Paris, while Algeria has a newfound preference for closer French trade and security ties. French relations with Algiers were strained for many [...]
