How and why is the global economic governance system changing - and with what consequences? In this edition of "Four Minute Foreign Policy," FPI Senior Fellow Gregory Chin sheds light on the remaking of the global economic architecture and introduces a fascinating project on one of its central pillars: a special issue on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Published by Global Policy, the forthcoming special issue will cover the AIIB's influence on and role in: - Environmental and social impact standards - The nexus of economics and security - Geopolitics between institutionally c ..read more

How and why is the global economic governance system changing - and with what consequences? FPI Senior Fellow Gregory Chin sheds light on the remaking of the global economic architecture and introduces a fascinating forthcoming project on one of its central pillars: a special issue on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Published by Global Policy, the forthcoming special issue will cover the AIIB's influence on and role in: - Environmental and social impact standards - The nexus of economics and security - Geopolitics between institutionally connected states - Geographical snaps ..read more

If the 2016 US Presidential Election was one of the most anticipated contests in nearly 243 years of America's existence, the election in 2020 is likely to eclipse that many times over. Regardless of which side of the fence you sit, Donald J. Trump's presidency has upended everything that was known and expected of White House occupants over the past two centuries. It would be unfair to blame the, to put it mildly, unorthodox incumbent for the deep divisions in America. Such political, demographic and even ideological differences have always lurked behind the facade of centrism that birthed th ..read more

Students of more recent political events are often keen to interview former officials. I know I was. Over the past two years, I talked to dozens of officials who worked in the George H. W. Bush Administration at the end of the Cold War. It helped with my dissertation: Methodologists – especially in political science – think it is generally a good idea to include interviews in one’s research. Always interesting and often informative, these discussions did help me better understand the questions I was interested in answering. And yet, as scholarly findings would suggest, the price of these gain ..read more

Dr Stephan Kieninger, fellow at Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, is the author of The Diplomacy of Détente: Cooperative Security Policies from Helmut Schmidt to George Shultz. He presented and discussed his book during a visit to NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on 5 November, 2018. Book talk: The Diplomacy of Detente: Cooperative Security Policies from Helmut Schmidt to George Shultz with Dr Stephan Kieninger, William Alberque and Catherine Gerth Mr William Alberque, Director of NATO’s Arms Control, Disarmament, and Weapons of Mass Destruction Non-Pro ..read more

A Royal Marine, a diplomat, a politician: Paddy Ashdown knew how to be tough to get things done. But he never forgot the importance of legitimacy in every measure he pushed through. Two days after U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis submitted his resignation letter to Donald Trump stressing disagreements on the question of the value of multilateralism and alliances, another champion of multilateralism passed away. Paddy Ashdown, a member of the House of Lords and former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the UK, was buried on January 10 in his village in Somerset. His life’s work was the p ..read more

An unmistakable sense of despair and gloom accompanies most news reports and literature on the state of affairs in Libya after 2011. The Arab Spring was meant to usher in a period of unprecedented change after decades of notoriously undemocratic leadership across the Middle East and North Africa. Yet, seven years later, there has been very little positive development in terms of transparency, accountability, and inclusivity in the Arab world. No Arab Spring country, however, has fared worse than Libya, whose revolt, ironically, was more of a NATO-supported war than a genuine home-grown revolu ..read more

One of Tunisia’s many jobless graduates detonated a home-made suicide bomb in the capital last month. This was not a Daesh attack, it was a desperate and tragic act and an important reminder to politicians and government about what is at stake in this young democracy. One of the most remarkable achievements of the ill-fated “Arab Spring” was the relative success Tunisia had in transforming its society despite extreme mistrust, heightened polarization and surging terror-related incidents. It was neither a bloody civil war nor protracted negotiations that brought an end to the two-decade Ben Al ..read more

Everywhere you look, the Arab world is changing — and fast. A decade or two ago, most countries in the region had an unusual system in which citizens enjoyed relative stability, buoyed by exports of natural resources or foreign assistance. Despite limits to personal development and the chances to increase household income, this system worked fine as long as the public sector continued to dole out jobs alongside generous subsidies to maintain the myths of a low cost of living and prosperity. However, regardless of whether a country is resource-rich or largely dependent on foreign assistance, w ..read more

There has been a surge in far-right groups and populist politicians driven by an ideology that suggests immigration is an unwelcome development of globalization. The most worrying aspect of this trend is that this fervor is now influencing key policy decisions, as governments increasingly bow to the pressure of raucous, even violent, protests urging an end to the flow of migrants. As societies, cultures and languages became increasingly mixed in the pursuit of trade, some native-born residents and naturalized citizens have expressed reservations about the constant stream of new arrivals. In e ..read more