Analyses
Hatem Nafti: “Tunisia, A Regime with No Alternative to its Rhetoric of Conspiracy”
Federica Zoja 21 October 2024
After surpassing 90 percent approval in the first round of the presidential elections on October 6, incumbent Tunisian leader Kais Saied faces his new term in a political, social, and economic climate vastly different from that of 2019. We discussed this shift with writer and essayist Hatem Nafty, whose latest work, Notre ami Kaïs Saïed. Essai sur la démocrature tunisienne (Our Friend Kais Saied: An Essay on the Tunisian Dictatorship), was presented in late September.
  • A Review of Sima Samar’s “Outspoken: My Fight for Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan”
    Ali Kosha 25 June 2024
    The Taliban’s 2021 return to power in Afghanistan, erasing much of the progress made in the previous two decades, raises critical questions about the international community’s efforts and the country’s short democratic experiment. Sima Samar, a human rights advocate and former Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), provides her perspective on these events in her new book, Outspoken: My Fight For Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan.
  • The Growing Weight of Religious Zionism in Israel and the War in Gaza
    Claudia De Martino 21 June 2024
    After 1967, Israel rediscovered itself as a strong state, capable of imposing its will on Arab enemies and setting the rules of the game. In a country that had just a few days earlier feared for its existence in the face of a joint Arab attack, the stunning military victory achieved in the Six-Day War sparked huge relief and considerable national pride for the technical and military achievements attained in less than twenty years of national history. Since then, the project of creating new settlements in the OPTs has faced opposition only from the more radical anti-Zionist and leftist factions at the fringes.
  • Slovakia at a Crossroads After Fico’s Attempted Assassination
    Fabio Turco 20 June 2024
    Things will not be the same for Slovakia following the attempted assassination of Premier Robert Fico. It will prove to be a watershed moment in the history of the country. Fico remains under strict medical supervision, but his conditions are improving day after day. Now is the time to speculate on the possible repercussions for the future of Slovakia. Both positive and negative. Something similar happened six years ago: the murder of reporter Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnirová. That tragedy resulted in increased social and political instability, which eventually led, in turn, to those five gunshots aimed at Fico. More blood has been spilled, but perhaps this second episode of violence will compel Slovakia to turn over a new leaf.
  • Will the Young Save Europe From the Rise of the Far Right?
    Albena Azmanova 6 June 2024
    The far right is poised to make dramatic gains in the European elections this weekend. One could draw hope from an increase in the youth vote. Turnout among the young has been rising in national and European elections. Moreover, Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Malta are extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds (and Greece to 17-year-olds). The latest Eurobarometer registers a fairly high interest in the elections among voters under 24, with most (63 percent) vouching to vote and an overwhelming majority (86 percent) agreeing voting is important to keep democracy strong.
  • The Dalai Lama’s Visits to Taiwan Intertwined with Cross-Strait Relations
    Kristina Kironska 5 June 2024
    The Dalai Lama has visited Taiwan three times – in 1997, 2001, and 2009 – and there are calls for his return. Since his first visit, Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan has grown significantly. The total number of Tibetan Buddhist centers has increased from 82 in 1996 to 473 in 2018, while the community of Tibetan Buddhists soared to approximately half a million. From this perspective, the Dalai Lama’s visits to Taiwan have achieved their goal of disseminating Tibetan Buddhism, making his potential return to Taiwan of paramount religious significance. But there is also a political significance to his visits.
  • Tunisia: Clamping Down on Civil Liberties Ahead of Understated Presidential Elections
    Ruth Hanau Santini 24 May 2024
    Next autumn Tunisians will go to the polls to elect the President of the Republic. The Election’s date has not been confirmed, and the main opposition coalition, Chebbi’s National Salvation Front, has announced they will boycott the vote unless three conditions will be met: the electoral commission will be independent, the main Islamist party, Ennahda, will be allowed to re-open its headquarters, and all political prisoners will be freed. When Tunisians last voted for presidential elections, all those conditions were in place, but in the past few years, political and civil liberties have shrunk to the extent that the country is not only “partly” free but its democratic ranking continues to deteriorate, year on year.
  • Iran after Raisi: Elections Under the Revolutionary Guard’s Watch
    Renzo Guolo 24 May 2024
    The death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, almost certainly the designated heir of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has exposed the contradictions at the heart of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Said contradictions lie both in the country’s institutional denomination – a true political oxymoron – and in its constitutional architecture, formed in 1979 when the revolution was still developing, and not yet wholly wedded to its Islamist matrix.
  • The Implications for Indonesian Democracy after Prabowo’s 2024 Win
    Hurriyah 30 April 2024
    After losing four elections, former general and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto won 58 percent of the vote on February 14, 2024. He and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, President Jokowi’s eldest son, are expected to be inaugurated as president and vice president in the coming months. In what may have been the worst elections since Indonesia’s post-1998 democratization, Prabowo’s current victory is the result of Machiavellian tactics – unethical cunning to attain personal ambitions – and reflects the fundamental threat to Indonesia’s nascent democracy
  • Hijacked Discourses Impede Cultural Plurality in International Affairs
    Seán Golden 24 April 2024
    Jürgen Habermas’ theory of civic discourse imposes binding rules on debate in order to subsequently bind behavior. Perhaps this could be extended to international affairs. Scholar Wang Minmin advocates establishing “a set of negotiable yet binding communicative rules and values, [and] world opinion [that] would both allow civic discourse and act as the binding power of an international norm.” Such an approach would require “that we must first acknowledge the differences in moral orders on both sides, but then also move beyond this to realize the common ground on which both sides stand.”
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