Diplomacy & Crisis News

In the last few months, rising public frustrations over domestic policy and a government proposal to weaken the social safety net have led to a sharp decline in Vladimir Putin’s popularity. 

It's Robert Gilpin's world; everyone else is just living in it.

Gamal Abdel Nasser and Sayyid Qutb are usually remembered as bitter enemies and representatives of two sides of Egypt's most intractable political divide. But in his book Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East, Fawaz Gerges shows that the two titans of Egyptian history overlapped ideologically and personally more than is generally realized.

How a dispute over a jailed American pastor roiled Turkey’s economy

LE petit royaume du Swaziland, situé entre l'Afrique du Sud et le Mozambique, est devenu une sorte de test dans le conflit entre Pretoria et ses voisins septentrionaux. Il y a quelques mois, Pretoria lui aurait offert de rattacher au Swaziland le nord du bantoustan du Zoulouland. Des documents (...) / Swaziland, Mouvement de libération, Frontières, Indépendance - 1982/02

Families say the State Department continues to curb benefits mandated by law.

Tech competition is being used to push a dangerous corporate agenda.

Rien ne révèle mieux l'ampleur des fluctuations des prix des produits de base que le sort récent du café et du sucre, qui représentent une part importante du commerce international. Au niveau du marketing et de la distribution, les entreprises transnationales contrôlent directement ou indirectement (...) / Commerce international, Développement, Relations Nord-Sud, Spéculation, Matières premières - 1977/06

 

On June 24th, Saudi Arabia lifted the ban against women driving, which was in place for over 25 years. This reform came just days after the one-year anniversary of 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s (MbS) rise to power. Since his ascension, the young prince has initiated widespread social and economic reformsthroughout the kingdom, many of which have addressed women’s rights. Despite the lift of the driving ban being a step in the right direction for women’s advancement in Saudi Arabia, the main reasoning behind it is purely economic based on MbS’ 2030 vision. Based on this vision, MbS wants to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil, and he promises to achieve this by taking steps to increase women’s participation into the Saudi workforce by 22 to 30%.

However, Saudi women still face a significant number of discriminatory policies that prevent them from achieving their full potential. Additionally, in the lead up to the reforms, the Saudi government arrested many women activistswho disagreed with the direction of such limited gender developments within the country. The United States should “name and shame” Saudi Arabia, one of its allies, into releasing the women activists and rescinding the allegations against them. As Saudi Arabia is unlikely to completely shift overnight in its overall treatment of women, MbS should take short-term actions to create more inclusivity for women, such as fewer regulations on women starting their own businesses. If MbS wants to achieve his 2030 visionfor the country, specifically the goal of transforming the economy with the incorporation of more women, he must begin to champion these courageous women and use them as allies.

A multitude of structural discriminatory policies infringe upon the basic rights of Saudi women, who constitute 42% of the country’s population, preventing them from obtaining full equality alongside their male counterparts. In fact, according to a recent poll, Thomas Reuters ranked Saudi Arabia as the fifth most dangerous country for women in the world, mainly because of its patriarchal societal norms. Some of these restrictive, archaic laws include a male guardianship systemand the inability of women to pass down their nationality to their children. As best described in an Al Jazeera opinion article, “a woman in Saudi Arabia is legally treated as a minor from cradle to grave; she needs consent of a male guardian to be able to study, travel, work, marry or obtain some official documents.” Even the lifting of the driving ban is not a complete equal opportunity for all Saudi women. The law so far has only allowed women with foreign permitsto be able to convert their current licenses from other countries. As of June 24th, an Interior Ministry spokesman estimated that only 120,000women applied for Saudi licenses out of an estimated 9 million eligible drivers. This further proves that the driving reform is not a genuine effort to incorporate more women into the workforce. Overall, women in Saudi Arabia experience life as second-class citizens, and the end of the driving ban is only a small step forward in terms of removing the discriminatory policies women face.

In spite of MbS’ attempt to portray himself as a modern leader committed to the human rights of his people, he has quietly detained activists and restricted the freedoms of citizens in the wake of these seemingly innovative reforms. Just weeks ahead of the lifting of the ban, the Kingdom arrested 11 leading Saudi women activistson counts of “communicating and cooperatingwith individuals and organizations hostile” to Saudi Arabia. Throughout the country and on social media, pictures of the arrested leaders went viral with text pasted across their photos reading “traitors” and “agents of embassies.”Some have suspected that MbS ordered the arrests to appealto the country’s ultraconservative demographic and religious leaders who have opposed these recent reforms. It is a great paradox that when women are finally getting into the driver’s seat, others are sitting in jailafter fighting for this right.

The United States and the United Nations should continue to demandthe release of the activists, as many of these women still remain behind bars. If MbS truly wants to transform the Saudi economy, he must use the untapped resources Saudi women present and expand the driving ban repeal to include all women. This will allow more women to enter the workforce, though many other reforms must occur in order for women to reach real equality. Women are a vital ally for MbS to make strides in achieving his goal of diversifying the Saudi economy.

When asked about Saudi women’s reforms compared to the West, MbS stated, “I just want to remind the world that American women had to wait long to get their right to vote. So we need time.” Even though we must praise driving ban repeal and other gender reforms, we must be concerned about the other restrictions on women’s freedom in Saudi Arabia, as well as the intense crackdown on women activists. This is the moment for MbS to form alliances with women activists in Saudi Arabia and continue to enact reforms for women so that he can be on the pathway of achieving his long-term goal of Vision 2030 for his country. It is 2018, and the time is now for Saudi women to experience full equality.

Renee Coulouris is a Master’s degree candidate at Johns Hopkins University, where she is studying Global Security Studies. She has previously worked at Women in International Security and in the Africa II Division of the Department of Political Affairs at the United Nations. Additionally, she has conducted research in an array of countries relating to international security, foreign policy, and women’s roles in extremist organizations.

The post Don’t Be Fooled by the Recent Reforms for Women in Saudi Arabia appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

On a parlé pendant des années, dans les milieux de journalistes spécialisés, du conflit idéologique entre les partis communistes d'U.R.S.S. et de Chine. Il nous a fallu à plusieurs reprises réagir contre cette conception unilatérale du conflit, et insister sur son caractère global. Certains (...) / Chine, URSS, Armement, Nucléaire militaire, Communisme, Conflit, Idéologie, Parti politique, Tiers-monde, Socialisme, Maoïsme, Révolution russe 1917 - 1969/10

How changing military strategy may have led to misconduct.

The U.S government needs to play a more assertive role in protecting the public from digital threats, just as it protects it from conventional ones.   

Democratic societies are fracturing into segments based on ever-narrower identities, threatening the possibility of deliberation and collective action by society as a whole. Unless liberal democracies can work their way back to more universal understandings of human dignity, they will doom themselves—and the world—to continuing conflict.  

Assam's citizenship crisis is the latest legacy of a division that made nations.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’été de Politique étrangère (n° 2/2018). Laurence Bindner propose une analyse de l’ouvrage dirigé par Thomas Hegghammer, Jihadi Culture: The Art and Social Practices of Militant Islamists (Cambridge University Press, 2017, 288 pages).

Alors que la recherche sur les groupes djihadistes privilégie habituellement les analyses historiques, opérationnelles ou doctrinales, cet ouvrage collectif en défriche un aspect méconnu : la culture et les pratiques sociales.

À travers sept champs d’étude explorés par dix spécialistes, Hegghammer éclaire le phénomène djihadiste à l’aune des préoccupations artistiques et esthétiques (poésie, musicologie, iconographie, cinématographie) de quelques groupes transnationaux, ainsi qu’à travers leurs us et coutumes (interprétation des rêves, martyrologie, pratiques non militaires – religieuses en particulier, ou d’autres plus surprenantes, comme les pleurs), des années 1980 aux années 2010.

L’exploration de ces champs souligne plusieurs aspects du djihadisme. La volonté de se poser comme héritier d’un islam des origines s’exprime dans tous les domaines artistiques. À titre d’exemple, les visuels de combattants en habits traditionnels mais à l’armement moderne révèlent la recherche d’une légitimité religieuse en illustrant la filiation entre passé et présent. L’adversité, l’appartenance à un cercle d’« élus » pratiquant un islam authentique est valorisée, notamment dans les textes poétiques. L’omniprésence de la martyrologie, esthétisée et désirée (les pleurs exprimant entre autres la déception de n’avoir pas encore été martyr) en confirme la centralité dans l’engagement djihadiste, au même titre que celle de la ferveur religieuse (pratique zélée, interventionnisme divin dans le réel ou les rêves…).

Les productions culturelles ont évolué avec le temps : l’audiovisuel, peu prisé auparavant, tient désormais une place de choix. Elles ont, de plus, intégré le progrès technologique et, fait remarquable, incorporé une altérité tant en provenance de l’Occident (rythmes musicaux, iconographie de « super-héros »…) que d’autres courants de l’islam, pourtant décriés (martyrologie soufie ou chiite). Cet effort d’adaptation peut s’expliquer par l’utilisation pragmatique des éléments culturels : les leaders djihadistes ont en effet conscience qu’ils mettent en jeu des moteurs émotionnels puissants et universels, plus susceptibles que l’intellect d’engendrer un militantisme et de renforcer une détermination à agir, comme l’écoute d’un nashid avant une opération-suicide. De plus, la prégnance de ces activités dans la mouvance djihadiste contribue à la construction d’une véritable identité culturelle, resserrant le lien d’appartenance au groupe autour de références communes, lien d’autant plus crucial que les djihadistes sont souvent en rupture avec leur environnement.

L’étude d’une culture djihadiste peut poser question : doit-on s’y pencher, au risque d’en humaniser les protagonistes ? L’ouvrage ne porte, à cet égard, nul regard complaisant. Les exposés, très descriptifs (parfois même techniques), ne perdent de vue ni le contexte, ni l’objectif totalitaire des groupes djihadistes, et constituent une source de connaissances substantielles sur leurs mentalités, leurs mœurs et leurs obsessions. Leur lecture s’inscrit donc dans la compréhension globale du phénomène et pourra alimenter la réflexion des autorités dans plusieurs domaines (contre-argumentaires, évaluation d’un stade de radicalisation ou d’une ancienneté dans la mouvance, voire possibilité d’infiltrer un groupe). Dans l’optique d’élargir l’étude de ces thèmes, Hegghammer pose de solides jalons.

Laurence Bindner

S’abonner à Politique étrangère

India's online biometric ID database offers a model for treating digital infra­structure as a public good and data as something that citizens deserve access to.   

In an world increasingly driven by the ability of private companies and governments to collect vast amounts of personal data online, the European Union's ambitious new data rules enshrine data privacy as a fundamental right rather than a luxury.

Since taking office, President Trump has made a series of unilateral decisions with enormous consequences for U.S. foreign policy. But Trump hasn't single-handedly destroyed the checks and balances that are supposed to constrain executive power in foreign policy: his actions are merely exposing that they have been wearing away for decades.

The United States long promoted its vision of an open and free Internet on the global stage. But today, as authoritarian governments and private actors increasingly weaponize the web, U.S. leadership is largely absent. It’s time for Washington to overcome its belief that the Internet can fix itself and instead work to maintain the Internet as a tool for strengthening democracy.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador's promise to shake up the status quo propelled him to success in Mexico's presidential election. But whether AMLO's leadership will bring about inclusive, forward-looking reforms or a turn backward to dominant-party rule and increased presidential power remains unclear.