Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Democracy

The Politics of Political Islam

The Politics of Political Islam

I don’t know who deserves the attribution as far as the coining is concerned, I only know—like the terms Islamism, sharia, and jihad — so-called political Islam is a loaded term that stirs storms of controversy. Despite that baggage, it is the prevalent concept that defines all political parties and movements with Islamic references. This […]

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Asia’s Pivot: Stepping on Human Rights, Reviving Realpolitik

Asia’s Pivot: Stepping on Human Rights, Reviving Realpolitik

In late July, following 28 years of authoritarian rule in Cambodia by the Prime Minister Hun Sen, citizens of the impoverished southeastern Asian state went to the polls for elections. What followed was a shocking setback: Mr. Sen’s ruling Cambodia People’s Party (CPP) saw its number of seats in the 123-seat parliament reduced from 90 […]

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Uncle Sam, Uncle Bob and elections in Zimbabwe

Uncle Sam, Uncle Bob and elections in Zimbabwe

Zimbabweans will go to the polls on Wednesday to participate in an election that will be closely monitored by hundreds of foreign observers, mostly from around Africa. One country that will be watching despite Western observer missions not being invited is the United States of America. Relations between Washington and Harare are definitely nowhere near the […]

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Morsi Ouster: Is There a Backstory?

Morsi Ouster: Is There a Backstory?

  There usually is. The Egyptian military, mirroring, it says, the will of the Egyptian people, has thrown Morsi’s band of Islamists out of office and set in motion the kind of parliamentary and electoral process that millions of neighboring Syrians want to see materialize in their own country. Instead, the Syrian people remain trapped […]

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Egypt after the Coup

Egypt after the Coup

Recent events in Egypt have been tumultuous, to say the least. The country’s first elected president in history was deposed by the military three days after his first anniversary in office. The International Crisis Group’s description of current Egyptian politics gives the impression of a grand competition in short-sightedness. What happens next will depend on […]

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Euphoria Eclipses Nightmare in Egypt

Euphoria Eclipses Nightmare in Egypt

Today, Egypt is a dangerously polarized nation that is on the brink of a civil war. And, that worst case scenario could have broad implications far beyond that country and the Middle East. Since the military coup d’etat, the situation in Egypt has been rapidly escalating into a dangerous political dichotomy- all against the Muslim […]

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Turkey’s Turmoil : The Fight for Democracy in Gezi Park

Turkey’s Turmoil : The Fight for Democracy in Gezi Park

What began as a peaceful sit-in to save a downtown park in Istanbul has erupted into a conflict between the forces of Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan’s government and liberal reformers. On Monday, June 17, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinic announced Turkey “will resort to calling on the military to contain these protests.” If one […]

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Why Obama’s visit is important for South Africa

Why Obama’s visit is important for South Africa

  As Barack Obama is about to embark on his historic tour of Africa, many South Africans are asking why it should matter to them. There are numerous reasons why a visit from the President of the United States is an historic occasion. First, the U.S. helps save South African lives. Since 2004, Washington has […]

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The Thatcher Legacy and Complex Pictures of Friendship

The Thatcher Legacy and Complex Pictures of Friendship

Beneath a vaulted marble sky adorned in constellations of angels, dragons, man and beast, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s coffin spent the evening before her funeral cloaked in the Union Jack inside the neo-gothic Chapel of St. Mary Undercroft.  Parliament, the starting block of Thatcher’s rise to iconic power, hovers above the Chapel in […]

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A Meeting of Ministers: Hague to make latest U.K. Syria bid

A Meeting of Ministers:  Hague to make latest U.K. Syria bid

The vice grip of prolonged violence suffocating Syria is sending the humanitarian situation there careening towards the fading lights of a blackout. With a death toll looming somewhere between 70-90,000 and a refugee population of over a million in two years time, international intervention to this point has been largely limited to food aid and […]

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The Politics of Managing Elections in Iran

The Politics of Managing Elections in Iran

  Iran’s presidential election will be held on June 14. Under Iran’s election law, observation of the voting process is a crime unless this monitoring is pre-approved. Generally, presidential candidates are only allowed to have one representative at each polling station to monitor the process. In 2009, it was claimed by Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the presidential […]

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Kenya Votes While Calm Reigns

Kenya Votes While Calm Reigns

In the spring of 2008, I met with a group of Kenyan human rights activists to discuss what they saw as the most pressing issues in East Africa. At one point, the conversation turned to the post-election violence their country witnessed just a few months before. “I know,” one of them said, shaking her head. […]

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A Candid Discussion on Iran’s Presidential Elections

A Candid Discussion on Iran’s Presidential Elections

The eleventh Iranian presidential election is scheduled to be held this June. Local council elections will also take place at the same time as presidential elections. To take an analytic look at this year’s Iranian elections from a number of relevant angles, the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) will be discussing the elections with leading observers and […]

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Is Liberty Losing Her Voice?

Is Liberty Losing Her Voice?

The history of Radio Liberty is the stuff of Cold War legend: dissidents huddled around a contraband radio in some dimly lit room in a cold and dreary gulag, hoping desperately to hear that the world recognized their suffering and that the promise of liberty was still within reach. Funded by the U.S. over decades, […]

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Tough Talk, No Strategy? Increasing role of sanctions in EU Foreign Policy

Tough Talk, No Strategy? Increasing role of sanctions in EU Foreign Policy

As the EU is dragged into coping with the ongoing financial crisis, there has been a lively discussion what will be the consequences on the EU’s foreign policy in the long-term forecast. Most of the arguments deal with a question of how the nature of the EU Crisis Management will change in the upcoming years, as EU […]

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