Chatham House

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del periódico incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de diciembre de 2006.

Nota informativa: Chatham House, fundado en 1920, es una organización no gubernamental, sin ánimo de lucro, con sede en Londres, cuya misión es analizar y promover la comprensión de los principales asuntos internacionales y asuntos de actualidad. Todos sus contenidos son de acceso libre, aunque se puede apoyar su trabajo con una contribución económica.

Members of a local election commission, accompanied by a serviceman, prepare a mobile polling station during early voting in Russia's presidential election in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine. (Photo by STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)

Elections in modern Russia have long been a symbolic performance designed to show the world the indestructible unity of the Russian population with the ruling power.

The outcome of this month’s presidential election is pre-ordained, leading to understandably scant enthusiasm among the electorate.

To address that indifference, this election cycle will see the Kremlin use an innovative array of techniques to bolster participation rates among politically passive populations.

Despite this skewed electoral playing field some opposition-minded Russians still plan to come to polling stations. But how much can they influence the predetermined outcome?

Coercion, online voting, and incentives from the Kremlin

The Kremlin has long mastered the art of engineering electoral turnout to legitimize its rule, but every new electoral cycle takes new approaches and techniques to manipulate elections.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters take part in a demonstration against the Israeli government and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 3 February 2024 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images).

During his State of the Union address of 7 March, US President Joe Biden announced that a port will be constructed off the coast of Gaza to help deliver aid to Palestinian civilians. While an important humanitarian measure, it was mostly an acknowledgment of the failure to reach a ceasefire, and to convince Israel to allow sufficient humanitarian assistance in by land.

Only a fortnight ago, Biden had announced that a ceasefire deal would be reached by 4 March, with an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners expected. But despite weeks of painstaking Qatari, Egyptian and US mediation, a ceasefire was not agreed before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on 11 March.…  Seguir leyendo »

People rally in Wad Madani, Sudan, in December 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

On 8 March, the UN Security Council adopted a UK-drafted resolution calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Sudan during the month of Ramadan, a sustainable resolution to the conflict through dialogue, compliance with international humanitarian law and unhindered humanitarian access.

Eleven months into the war, this is the first time that the Council has been able to agree on a resolution. The mandate of the UN Panel of Experts that monitors the sanctions regime in Darfur was also renewed by the Council. Does this signify hope that efforts to end the war might gather momentum? Or is Sudan likely to face a protracted conflict?…  Seguir leyendo »

Members of the European Parliament take part in a voting session during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on 13 March 2024. Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images.

The European Parliament today passed its landmark AI Act – a sweeping piece of legislation targeting the risks posed by the fast-moving technology. It threatens an outright ban on artificial intelligence (AI) applications which carry unacceptable risks for the safety, livelihoods and rights of EU citizen (this includes for example cognitive behavioural manipulation, social scoring or biometric identification).

It also places significant obligations on the use of AI in in ‘high risk’ applications, such as health, critical infrastructure, border control, education, justice and the everyday services relied on by European citizens. The law will apply to businesses operating in the EU and, critically, the tech giants behind the AI products used by Europeans every day.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Great Pyramid of Khufu and the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure are visible in the background as a tourist walks at the Cairo Citadel overlooking the skyline of Cairo and Giza on 19 February 2024. Photo: AMIR MAKAR/AFP via Getty Images.

When it comes to managing a financial crisis, luck is a valuable commodity – and Egypt has plenty of it. A $35 billion investment from the UAE and a $5 billion increase in a loan from the IMF – amounting in all to 10 per cent of Egypt’s $400 billion GDP – will go a very long way towards clearing the economy’s dollar shortage and eliminating any near-term risk of default.

The luck that has helped Egypt secure such massive financial resources comes from its proximity to rich neighbours, its strategic position in a fragile part of the world – especially its potential role in stabilizing a post-war Gaza Strip – and its political importance to the US, a status which has allowed Egypt to become the IMF’s second biggest borrower after Argentina.…  Seguir leyendo »

President Joe Biden delivers his annual State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the Capital building on March 7, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Shawn Thew - Pool/Getty Images)

After one of the most important weeks in the US political calendar, there is a little more clarity on what to expect from the United States, but not much. Super Tuesday ushered in Nikki Haley’s departure from the race and confirmed President Biden and former President Donald Trump as the presumptive nominees for their parties.

If things go as is currently expected, one of these men will become a second term president. The polls continue to suggest that this election is likely to be very close and difficult to predict. American voters are divided but some of the most critical blocs of voters are so far not especially enthusiastic about either candidate.…  Seguir leyendo »

Director-General of the WTO Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and President of Comoros Azali Assoumani chat after signing the agreement for the Comoros accession to the WTO on February 26, 2024 (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP via Getty images)

4,000 delegates from the WTO’s 166 members met in Abu Dhabi in late February and deliberated for five long days and nights. Tensions flared, with large players – most notably the US and India – flexing their muscles. Ultimately governments failed to agree on much although they did manage, at the last minute, to renew a commitment not to impose tariffs on digital trade for the next two years.

The WTO’s repeated failure to generate new rules has provoked considerable debate about its relevance and a myriad of proposals on how to get its rule-making and dispute settlement system ‘back on track’.…  Seguir leyendo »

A French marine observes the Romanian Navy frigate 'Regele Ferdinand' from one of the windows of the ATL2 Atlantique 2 airplane over the Black Sea during the Sea Shield 2023 military exercise off Constanta, Romania, on 30 March 2023. Photo by DANIEL MIHAI

Through its war against Ukraine and geopolitical revisionism in the Black Sea, Russia seeks to establish uncontested hegemony and project influence beyond its neighbourhood and into the Western Balkans, South Caucasus, Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. This would allow Russia to challenge European security from multiple positions.

Geopolitical competition in the Black Sea is redefining regional order, changing its geopolitical identity, and shaping relations between states in the wider region. It has also hollowed out the once popular idea of regional order premised on regional ownership and laid bare how the security of different regions is interlinked. The Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean have increasingly merged into one geopolitical space, where regional and great power rivalries play out.…  Seguir leyendo »

People on a motorcycle carry their belongings as they leave Port-au-Prince, Haiti, following gang violence in March 2024. (Photo by CLARENS SIFFROY/AFP via Getty Images).

A massive jailbreak of more than 4,700 prisoners on 3 March 2024 saw chaos grip Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and much of the rest of the country. The shocking event, organized by powerful criminal gangs, follows a horrifying uptick of violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on 7 July 2021.

There are many reasons for Haiti’s lamentable condition, including the legacy of almost 30 years of brutal rule by the Duvalier family, and the 28 years of fraught elections, aborted governments, coups and coup attempts that followed.

59 per cent of the country’s 11 million people live in poverty, aggravated by environmental collapse, extreme weather and natural disasters.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Iranian woman shows a voting document as she waits in front of a polling station in Tehran on 1 March, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP via Getty images)

Iran’s parliamentary and Assembly of Experts election held on 1 March should not be seen as a democratic exercise where people express their will at the ballot box. As in many authoritarian countries, elections in Iran have long been used to legitimize the power and influence of the ruling elite.

These elections come one year after Mahsa Jina Amini’s tragic death for improper veiling at the hands of Iran’s morality police – an event that sparked month long protests across the country. They also follow a brutal government crackdown, declining economic conditions and an uptick in executions.

Rather than build back popular legitimacy through inclusive elections, the political establishment led by the aging 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has prioritized a further consolidation of conservative power across elected and unelected institutions to prepare for clerical succession.…  Seguir leyendo »

Political parties (Isanco, DA, IFP, FF Plus, ActionSA, UIM, ADCP and SNP) during the Multi-Party Charter at Birchwood Hotel on November 28, 2023 in Boksburg, South Africa. (Photo by OJ Koloti/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

South Africa’s ruling ANC party launched its manifesto last week, but the background for the event was worrying for party leaders.

Polls indicate that 2024’s general election, scheduled for 29 May, could see the ANC get below 50 per cent of the vote for the first time since 1994 – bringing about multi-party government for the first time. That will be a significant inflection point for South Africans, and for the region.

But progress towards democratic pluralism would be a fulfilment of South Africa’s constitution, which imagined a more diverse political landscape, and is intentionally structured around quasi-federalist political institutions and consociationalism.…  Seguir leyendo »

Members of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement salute during the funeral of Youssef Karam Jawad, a fighter killed during cross-border clashes with Israel in November 2023 (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared on 25 February that Israel ‘will keep attacking Lebanon regardless of what happens in Gaza’ – and indeed mutual strikes by Israel and Hezbollah are continuing.

Fighting between the two sides began in the aftermath of Hamas’ assault on Israel on 7 October, with Hezbollah being the first to attack Israel on another front.

Although Hezbollah has celebrated some military successes over the past four months, the war in Gaza is testing its strategic capability. Despite being the instigator of the fight, Hezbollah is not setting the agenda. Its main priority is survival rather than victory.…  Seguir leyendo »

A woman walks by banners dedicated to the African Union in Addis Ababa on February 15, 2024 (Photo by Michele Spatari / AFP via Getty Images)

Africa witnessed a spate of cyberattacks in 2023, against African Union Commission (AUC) systems, Kenyan government data systems, and Nigerian election infrastructure among others.

The attacks seem to have served as a wake-up call for the AU, driving its Peace and Security Council (PSC) to make cybersecurity a key agenda point at this year’s summit, held in Addis Ababa.

Real achievements were made: African heads of state addressed a number of cybersecurity related matters – the first notable action on the issue since the AU created its Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (DTS) in February 2020.

At the summit the AUC was directed to expedite the development of a Continental Cybersecurity Strategy.…  Seguir leyendo »

A clerk counts banknotes at a bank outlet in Hai'an in east China's Jiangsu province (Image credit XU JINBAI/ Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Consumer prices in China have now fallen in five out of the last seven months, and the annual inflation rate fell to minus 0.8 per cent in January.

There is a growing risk that deflation and weak economic activity might aggravate each other, creating a kind of ‘doom loop’: prices fall because demand is weak, and demand stays weak since Chinese households reckon it’s better to delay spending in the hope that goods and services get even cheaper.

All this should have some implications for Chinese exchange rate policy: a weaker renminbi (CNY) could raise the domestic price of imported goods by enough to help unroot China’s deflationary psychology before it really establishes itself.…  Seguir leyendo »

Supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan's party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) stage a protest against the results of the 8 February elections, in Islamabad, Pakistan on 17 February 2024. Photo by Muhammed Semih Ugurlu/Anadolu via Getty Images.

After days of intense political bargaining following one of the most contested elections in Pakistan’s history, agreement was reached this week on a five-party minority coalition government led by former interim prime minister, Shahbaz Sharif, of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

The protracted negotiations between the centre-right PML-N and the centre-left Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) were complicated by a split mandate that failed – against all expectations – to produce a clear winning majority for the PML-N. Its credibility, and by extension the standing of the coalition, has been strongly challenged by former prime minister Imran Khan, leader of the Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), which denounced the coalition as ‘mandate thieves’.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ursula Von Der Leyen, president Of The European Commission, speaking at a press conference after a special EU summit in Brussels, Belgium on 1 February 2024. (Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images).

Enlargement is back. For the last decade or so, the European Union had made it clear that, while accession negotiations with several countries would continue, it did not expect any of them to actually join the bloc any time soon.

After becoming European Commission president in 2014, Jean-Claude Juncker said that no further enlargement would take place during his five-year term. Although his successor, Ursula von der Leyen, promised a ‘geopolitical’ Commission when she took over in 2019, she did not immediately signal a greater openness to enlargement.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 changed all that. Enlargement is now not just back on the EU’s agenda but has become its highest priority.…  Seguir leyendo »

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, his wife Yulia, opposition politician Lyubov Sobol and other demonstrators march in memory of murdered Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov in downtown Moscow on 29 February, 2020. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)

Alexei Navalny was the leading opponent of Vladimir Putin inside Russia – even from behind bars and often in solitary confinement.

He made his name while still a free man by unmasking the nature of the regime through corruption exposés, protests, and by trying to be a ‘normal’ politician in a system dominated by one other man.

Navalny’s death provides another, potent demonstration of the system Putin has constructed: a murderous personalist autocracy that continues to spread destruction and misery in its ongoing war on Ukraine.

We may never know the full details leading up to Navalny’s death in the ‘Polar Wolf’ prison colony within the Arctic Circle on 16 February.…  Seguir leyendo »

Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto addresses supporters at an event on February 14, 2024 in Jakarta, Indonesia - watched by Gibran Rakabuming Raka (Photo by Oscar Siagian/Getty Images)

When I had lunch with Prabowo Subianto in 2013, a year before his first, failed attempt to be elected president of Indonesia, he was still honing his fiery nationalist pitch, promising to shake up the country and prevent it becoming a failed state.

Eleven years later, the 72-year-old former general finally seems to have secured the presidency by reinventing himself as a continuity candidate, forming an unlikely alliance with the incredibly popular outgoing President Joko Widodo.

Unofficial ‘quick counts’ by respected pollsters, which are typically accurate, indicate that Prabowo won nearly 60 per cent of the vote in Indonesia’s presidential election on February 14.…  Seguir leyendo »

A close-up view of an uniform of a Turkish soldier in Prishtina, Kosovo on 7 June 2023. Photo by Arif Hudaverdi Yaman/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

At a recent campaign rally in South Carolina, Donald Trump appeared to invite Vladimir Putin’s Russia to invade any NATO member failing to meet the 2 per cent of GDP target for defence spending.

While his comments appeared to be popular among the MAGA crowd attending the rally, they were immediately condemned on both sides of the Atlantic.

A White House spokesperson called the comments ‘ appalling and unhinged’. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also responded in undiplomatic terms saying: ‘Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk’.…  Seguir leyendo »

Supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) protest outside a temporary election commission office in Peshawar on February 10, 2024. (Photo by ABDUL MAJEED/AFP via Getty Images)

The dust has yet to settle on Pakistan’s election. The official results show that independent candidates aligned to the PTI – the party of Imran Khan – have performed better than anticipated despite Khan’s arrest and conviction. This belies the initial belief that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) – the party of the Sharif brothers (Nawaz and Shehbaz) – would lead the next government.

The PTI and PML-N both claim victory, but neither has yet secured the requisite numbers to form a government on its own. This increases the probability that a messy coalition government is formed after an extended period of horse-trading.…  Seguir leyendo »