The indictment filed by the United States Justice Department on February 16, 2018 against 13 Russian citizens and three Russian companies regarding attempts to promote the candidacy of Donald Trump for the US presidency, amounting to intervention in the country’s political system, is a phenomenon enabling interference in the “consciousness” of another country
Recent events and statements by German figures indicate a change in Germany’s attitude to Israel. What for decades was a unique bilateral relationship – grounded in the memory of the Holocaust and the commitment that Germany consequently made to Israel’s existence and security – has been increasingly shaped by considerations of realpolitik that formerly played a secondary role.
Youssef Mahmoud, David Connolly, and Delphine Mechoulan
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Prevention is generally viewed as a crisis management tool to address the destructive dynamics of conflict. The sustaining peace agenda challenges this traditional understanding of preventive action by shifting the starting point of analysis to what is still working in society—the positive aspects of resilience—and building on these.
As governments and communities seek the right combination of methods to halt terrorism, one that we too often miss is nonviolent resistance. It’s not that we haven’t seen the power of protest movements that use mass marches, sit-ins, boycotts and other forceful but nonviolent tactics. To the contrary, people worldwide have been moved by watching such movements sweep aside the walls of apartheid, the tanks of dictators or the impunity of kleptocracies. But governments and civil society alike have failed to connect the dots—to promote nonviolent action that can help communities address grievances while absorbing the youth alienation upon which terrorist movements feed.
Over the past decade, transnational and deadly violent extremist movements—such as ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Shabab—have risen out of instability and conflicts and repeatedly inflamed and perpetuated hostilities. These movements recruit followers and destabilize regions by harnessing agendas and exploiting grievances such as social marginalization, political exclusion, state repression, and lack of access to justice and resources.
During negotiations of mega-regional trade agreements,
state representatives have the incentive to demand that other parties align with their entrenched regulatory practices.
Indeed, a country’s exporters will derive extensive benefits if negotiating partners fulfill these demands. Strictly
pursuing self-interest, however, often leads to stalemate.
When the United States (US) and European Union (EU)
entered into negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership (TTIP), they sought to more effectively align transatlantic regulation and associated practices. Although extant literature indicates that relatively similar, rich, and developed countries should easily conclude
agreements due to shared interests, negotiations between
the US and EU in the regulatory area of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) deteriorated. By 2016, this matter
effectively fell off the TTIP negotiating agenda.
Multiple possible scenarios could emerge from Zimbabwe’s July 30 polls—the country’s first without Robert Mugabe’s name on the ballot. For now, the military appears intent on leveraging its interests.
Since Egypt’s appearance in the inaugural 1930 World Cup, African countries’ performance in the tournament has been a source of pride and national identity.
Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP)
Abstract:
The internal weaknesses of the process of democratisation in the Western Balkans ensue from reinforcing a system where (ethno)politics and (ethno)political entre-preneurs use all available strategies to deprive citizens of any political agency, thus working towards obedient democracies while keeping real political power within closed circles. The conscious deepening of differences, maintaining negative tensions and instrumentalising – predominantly ethnic – identities for political or other particular purposes are some of the crucial features of (ethno)politics in the Western Balkans.
Why do we pay $600 for EpiPens, a long-existing piece of technology
that contains just a dollar’s worth of medicine? Why
do hospitalized patients so frequently receive bills laden with
inflated charges that come out of the blue from out-ofnetwork
providers or that demand payment for services that weren’t delivered?