US Rebalancing No More
In early January 2018, Pakistani foreign minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif declared his country’s alliance with the United States to be “over.” In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has upended decades More
Demise of the Divine: Iran’s Crumbling Theocracy
Perhaps one of the most defining moments in politics in the Middle East last year was the 2017 Presidential election in Iran, which was followed by a series of protests More
“It’s Trade, Stupid!”: Don’t Forget Brexit
The post-war history of global trade has so far been like a cheery fairy-tale. Even as multilateral trade liberalization froze from the Doha round onwards, the proliferation of preferential trade More
The Rohingya Crisis: Political Impasse and Challenges to R2P
Recent Escalation of Violence On 25 August 2017, renewed violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state led to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya civilians from their homes. The crackdown More
The Defeat of IS: A Tentative Obituary
In November 2017, the Islamic State (IS) was declared defeated by Iraq and Syria. The defeat of IS came three years after they gained global prominence in 2014 initially for More
Putin 2018: Russian Revanchism and the Authoritarian Alternative
The 2018 Russian Presidential Elections seems to confirm what political theorists since Montesquieu have claimed concerning the country: Russia is a despotism, and that situation is unlikely to change anytime More
The Tides of March: Europe In or Out on Continued Integration?
March 4th: For and Against On March 4th, the people of both Germany and Italy were faced with decisions that will have an incredible impact on the future of each More
The Axes of Identity: An Introduction to Intersectionality
At the cusp of second-wave feminism, there was a lack of understanding of discriminatory differences between identity groups. Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term ‘intersectionality’ in 1989 to conceptualize the junction More
I Just Can’t Wait to Be King: The Rise of MBS in the Middle East
Last June, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud named his son, 31 year-old Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud (also known as MBS) as the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. More
Macron in the Middle: The Politics of French Moderation
As we look back at the most important headlines of 2017, it is important to look at events that stand in contrast to previous trends and will have a lasting More