The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and its reimposition of US sanctions put the Iranian economy back into a stranglehold and discredited the reformists led by President Hassan Rouhani who had secured the deal. With the country already reeling from the US sanctions, the COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a heavy blow. As political factions mobilize for the 2021 elections, the situation is more unpredictable than ever.

There is a danger that internal power struggles may cause distractions and derail the project of reformation.

[T]he idea that being ‘tough on asylum’ wins elections has become one of the great enduring myths of Australian politics, and apparently both major parties have decided that the stakes are too high to try anything different.

Political conflicts can flare up when new, increasingly vocal lower-middle-income groups enter the political arena and when this threatens the advantaged positions of established middle classes.

A prominent philosopher of science calls for a radical political realignment to confront the existential threat posed by the climate crisis.

The most disturbing aspect of the debate is the impact it is having on Chinese Australians who want to successfully integrate into Australian society.

[D]iaspora politics can be viewed as not only enhancing or challenging state power in particular cases, but also contributing to new forms of global identity politics that transcend state institutions.

Nepal's new constitution was supposed to cap a momentous decade that saw the end of the monarchy and civil war. But identity politics and economic discontent have called national unity into question.

While the European Union has embedded itself in ordinary life through administrative integration and cultural symbols, this “banal authority” may not be enough to handle tough political tests.

[T]he ICC's intervention did not help prompt a political transition, but was instead effectively framed as an injustice and used by the defendants and their supporters to mobilize political support.

[W]hile the March election map shows how divided the country still is in many respects, the peaceful turnover is a chance to build a greater sense of national solidarity around democratic institutions.

With each promise of more foreign aid by multilateral donors, the general public assumed that the nation's elites would grow richer while ordinary people were abandoned to die in their homes and on the streets.

[N]ationalism in much of Africa continues to manifest itself in a struggle for control of the state where political institutions are unable to accommodate pressures for representation.

[D]espite the global goodwill, economic good fortune, and political triumphs Modi has enjoyed, questions are increasingly being asked about his capacity to deliver on the promises that won him the election.

Winning higher office requires building cross-party electoral coalitions at lower levels; governing requires different coalitions that may be only partially related to the electoral alliances.

“[I]t is the failure to consolidate or maintain national identities that are cohesive yet adaptable, rooted in shared historical memories yet capable of integrating new ones, that helps generate some of the major threats to peace and stability in today's global environment.” Fourth in a series on resurgent nationalism.

A new book by Michael W. Doyle engages with the ideas of John Stuart Mill in an effort to answer the perennial question of when international humanitarian intervention can be justified.

[T]he prospect of India without a stable governing coalition—whether established by the Congress Party, by the BJP, or by regional parties supported by either the Congress or the BJP—is not beyond the realm of possibility.

Arabs want freedom; the West is hardly making democracy look good. Fortunately, liberty is a universal ideal, developing nations' economies are growing, and much of America's lamented decline is relative or reversible.

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