Q & A Archive

In mid-May, India sent a junior foreign minister to Pyongyang for an official visit, the first such visit by an Indian government minister to North Korea in almost 20 years. The trip took place against the backdrop of intense diplomatic engagement between Washington and Pyongyang that could ease North Korea’s economic isolation. In an email interview, Balbina Hwang, an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, discusses North Korea’s economic and diplomatic ties with South and Southeast Asian countries, and the implications of the potential thaw on the Korean Peninsula for these relationships. World Politics Review: What has been the nature […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. May has been a tough month for press freedom in Cambodia. On May 5, the Phnom Penh Post, an independent newspaper often critical of the Cambodian government, was sold to a Malaysian investor with links to Prime Minister Hun Sen. And on May 18, a court refused to release two Radio Free Asia reporters who have been held in pretrial detention for six months on charges of espionage. In an email interview, Sebastian Strangio, a journalist focusing on Southeast […]

Last Friday, the International Monetary Fund formally opened negotiations with Argentina for a financial bailout, after a run on the Argentine peso drove its value down by roughly 20 percent against the dollar between January and the beginning of May. The financial crisis comes against the backdrop of Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s unpopular economic reforms, which have so far struggled to deliver promised results. In an email interview, Bruno Binetti, a Buenos Aires-based nonresident fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, discusses the causes of the financial crisis, and the economic and political implications of an IMF bailout for Argentina and Macri. […]

Last week, thousands of women marched through Santiago, Chile, in a demonstration organized by university students to protest sexual harassment and violence against women on campus. The demonstration followed an even larger one the previous Friday protesting violence against women. In an email interview, Kirsten Sehnbruch, an associate researcher at the Universidad de Chile and the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion, and Patricio Espinoza, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics’ International Inequalities Institute, discuss the current protests and how they fit into Chile’s broader student and feminist movements. World Politics Review: What […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss Israel’s lethal response to the Gaza protests, the latest surprise developments in North Korean diplomacy and Venezuela’s presidential election. For the Report, Julia Steers talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza’s violent campaign to silence his opponents at home and abroad, against the backdrop of a constitutional referendum this week that could keep him in office through 2034. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our […]

Last week, President Donald Trump announced the United States would be reimposing unilateral sanctions against Iran that had been suspended as part of the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. At the heart of the U.S. sanctions are measures targeting Iran’s oil and gas sector, including any non-Iranian corporations that do business with Iran. In an email interview, Thijs Van de Graaf, an assistant professor of international politics at Ghent University in Belgium, discusses the evolution of Iran’s oil and gas sector since the JCPOA, and the implications of the reimposition […]

In early May, Morocco severed diplomatic relations with Iran, after having normalized relations with Tehran in January 2017. Rabat had previously severed ties in 2009 over charges that Iran had interfered in Morocco’s domestic affairs. This time, the accusation had to do with meddling in Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco claims sovereignty over, but which is home to a separatist movement, the Polisario Front. In an email interview, Ann Wainscott, assistant professor of political science at Miami University and the 2017-2018 American Academy of Religion senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, discusses the causes of the current […]

On May 8, Armenian opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan was chosen by lawmakers to become the next prime minister, culminating three weeks of massive popular demonstrations against the country’s opaque and corrupt political establishment. The initial catalyst for the demonstrations was former President Serzh Sargsyan’s effort to hold onto power by assuming the premiership, having already revised the constitution to strengthen the prime minister’s executive powers. With expectations for change now running high, Pashinyan has his work cut out for him if he is to retain the support of the diverse coalition that brought him to power. In an email interview, […]

Five years after emerging from its last political crisis, the island nation of Madagascar has once again entered a period of heightened tensions, this time over new electoral laws passed in the run-up to elections later this year. The current impasse is driven by familiar underlying factors, but it also features new fault lines and surprising alliances. In an email interview, Cornelia Tremann, an expert on Madagascar’s politics of development and the country’s relations with China, discusses what is behind the current standoff and the role outside actors might play in mediating it. World Politics Review: What is the proximate […]

In late April, the European Union and Mexico announced the successful conclusion of negotiations to update their current trade agreement. The new framework, which still must be formally ratified and signed, will expand the range of products exempted from tariffs. It represents the latest effort by both sides to diversify their free trade arrangements against the backdrop of rising American protectionism under President Donald Trump. In an email interview, Sean Goforth, a contributing analyst at the geostrategic consulting firm Wikistrat, discusses how the new deal will affect EU-Mexico trade, opportunities and obstacles for expanding commercial ties, and the implications of […]

On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators marched in Paris to express their disapproval of French President Emmanuel Macron on the one-year anniversary of his election. Macron has wasted little time following through on his campaign promises of economic and fiscal reforms. But his efforts to overhaul France’s labor regulations as well as his willingness to use extraordinary executive powers to push through his agenda have led critics to call him authoritarian and the “president of the rich.” In an email interview, George Ross, distinguished Jean Monnet Chair and visiting professor of political science at the University of Montreal-McGill Center for Excellence […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about religious minorities in various countries around the world. In early February, a month before Italy’s inconclusive elections, the leader of the far-right party the League, Matteo Salvini, called for the closure of all “illegal” Islamic centers, declaring that “Islam is incompatible” with Italian values. The rise of Islamophobia in Italy has coincided with an anti-immigrant backlash to the migrant crisis that saw just under 120,000 immigrants arrive in the country in 2017 alone, many of them Muslims from Africa and the Middle East. But the question of unregistered Islamic […]