The past is present in Algeria. Although the country is an authoritarian state, it technically exhibits a civilian-run government led by an independent politician. Is there a chance for democracy? Not if Algeria can return to an effective authoritarian state as it was in the 1960s and 1970s because it will then be able to appease its population with education, jobs, houses, and rising living standards.
The recent visit of the Chief of the Chinese Army’s General Staff Chen Bingde to Russia underscored the two states willingness to maintain their military contacts despite Russia’s fears of the rapidly growing power of its Eastern neighbor. Both nations wish to preserve trust amidst competing interests. Suspicions on the Russian side will not go away and pose challenges to closer security ties.
The European Union (EU) has been engaged in the fight against terrorism as far back as the 1970s, triggered by attacks at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. The EU’s counter-terrorism plans call for the vigorous promotion of security, justice, democracy and opportunity for all. But to what extent have such aims proved compatible and consistently pursued?
In the coming weeks as the Libya drama comes to a climax and as the debate on Afghanistan sharpens on what happens next, the European nations will have to make a decision on what kind of transatlantic relationship they want, or need, or value. The option of grumbling dependency is over, an era of shared responsibility and mutual contribution is about to dawn.
When making sense of the weird things currently happening in the northern hemisphere, such as the London riots, one trend should not escape our notice: a deepening crisis caused by bankers’ greed is beginning to rip the guts out of democracy. Four years into the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression, governments of vital parts of the capitalist world are running on empty.
The intransigence of the Tea Party Republicans during the recent US debt ceiling negotiations has apparently saved the US defense budget from deep cuts that had seemed almost certain a month ago. The negotiations pushed a full agreement onto a special legislative committee which is to report in the fall.
It is time the U.S. and other governments took a more nuanced approach to politics in the Horn of Africa and followed the lead of international aid agencies on the ground in dealing with local leaders and communities, rather than seeking to impose a top-down central government. The solution to famine in East Africa lies in employment-generating development. It will not offer an instant fix, but it’s a start.
Theorists conceive of knowledge and its relations to reality differently. Knowledge of the world is ‘reality’, yet this ‘reality’ is socially constructed through discourse. Looking through the Realist lens, the Cuban Missile Crisis becomes an affair of two rationally acting Great Powers locked in a power struggle owing to the inducements of a bipolar anarchic international system.
Sex tourism has become a significant contributor to the income of the tourism industry in recent years. Yet, how have we come to define it? In what ways has postcolonialism assisted in constructing our understanding of it? And, how might we extend the application of postcolonial discourses to assist in developing that comprehension?
On July 9th diplomats celebrated the birth of Africa’s newest country, South Sudan, like over-stimulated toddlers at a party. The media followed suit, with trivial and sometimes patronising stories about the new national anthem and flag, and the admittedly strange plan to create cities in the shapes of African animals. Sadly, those involved should have focused on the agenda items they failed to address before sending out the independence day invitations.
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