Diplomacy & Crisis News

Within hours of the disastrous flood in Hualien County, volunteers poured in from across Taiwan.

Central Asia's banking and crypto sectors have been increasingly targeted by the EU, U.K., and the United States for sanctions.

With only a two-and-a-half year prison sentence, the harsher punishment seems to be the closure of his entire platform aimed at religious discussions.

Not long ago, it would have been laughable to imagine Lee Jae-myung and Takaichi Sanae as leaders that would foster friendlier ties between these countries.

The TTP, BLA, and ISKP are three distinct types of militant groups, each exploiting Pakistan’s security vulnerabilities with distinct ideologies, objectives, and tactics.

An emerging group of illiberal democracies – including Trump’s America – is aligning with authoritarian states to systematically dismantle the post-war international order. 

The U.K. government faces accusations that it dropped an espionage case to safeguard diplomatic and trade relations with China.

Australia’s strategic footing remains shaped by decisions made elsewhere – like the upcoming Trump-Xi summit.

Taiwan is buying things, but is it actually acquiring the capabilities needed for deterrence?

Following the third wave of democratization, democracy and its proponents have recently experienced a shift towards autocratization. To date, however, little is known about the impact of this trend on democracy promotion. This article introduces a special issue that examines the complex relationship between autocratization and external democracy promotion. It provides a conceptual framework for understanding how the global trend of autocratization affects democracy promotion efforts. We identify two ways in which this is the case: first, autocratization requires democracy promoters to adapt to increasingly resistant environments in target countries where they seek to promote democracy or prevent autocratization; second, autocratization reduces the global leverage of democracy promoters due to the rise of autocratic competitors. We highlight the evolving strategies and responses of democracy promoters in the face of rising autocratic influence. We then provide an overview of the articles in this special issue, which examine the motives and strategies of traditional democracy promoters and their autocratic competitors and analyse how democracy promoters navigate the challenges of autocratization in target countries of democracy promotion and the strategic competition with autocratic regimes, using case studies from Southeastern Europe, the post-Soviet space, Africa and Latin America.

Indonesia’s mineral riches continue to clash with its green goals. A new law has been passed to regulate mining and protect the environment and local communities, but its enforcement remains weak.

Skilled labor is the missing link in China’s industrial transformation.

Southeast Asia serves as Beijing's operational testing ground for cyberattacks. It’s time the U.S. started paying attention. 

Geography, demographics, religion, technology, and a state’s institutions determined why certain states exercised power and how different regions developed the way that they did.

A common border with India, transport links, and regional connectivity make Delhi an essential ally in maintaining the industrial base of Bangladesh.

Der Begriff „Globaler Süden“ erfreut sich seit Jahren wachsender Beliebtheit. Oft wird er als knappe Referenz für Teile der Welt verwendet, die lange als „Entwicklungsländer“ oder „Dritte Welt“ bezeichnet wurden. Für viele bringt er die gemeinsame historische Erfahrung von Kolonialisierung und Marginalisierung in Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika auf den Punkt und verweist auf den Anspruch, globale Prozesse proaktiv mitzugestalten.

The United Nations is a multilateral organization with near-universal reach. With few exceptions, United Nations rules and regulations apply to all 193 Member States. The operational activities for development of the United Nations system, however, are organized along a binary logic by which “developed” countries provide funding to United Nations entities and “developing” countries receive United Nations support. Against the backdrop of ongoing discussions under the United Nations Secretary-General’s UN80 initiative, we suggest that the United Nations reform its development work to ensure that it engages all Member States. Universalizing United Nations development functions – i.e., mandating the Organization’s development pillar to engage with countries of all income categories – is a key step towards a more effective multilateral development system.

Only UN infrastructure—and American leverage—can prevent a humanitarian collapse.

Addressing the military's impunity and supporting the emerging "pluralistic state," is the only effective way forward for the bloc.

The collapse of the Al-Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in East Java on September 29 led to the death of 63 students.