Group items tagged

About Israel's election: Natanyahu running for third term, only other percieved challengers unable to run because some law and court issues.

Oooh. So much to discuss about Israeli politics.

Its interesting that Israel-US relations may have a sway in the US presidential elections, even when Israel itself is tainted with corruption.

There still remains a fear of white empowerment in today's South Africa, and this has certainly contributed to the loyalism that has kept the ANC in power. Yet because the current unemployment rate for men and women aged 15-24 averages 49.8%, and the median age of South Africa is 25.5 years, the younger demographics of the country will lend itself to chipping away at the ANC's majority vote. The ANC has fallen to nepotism and other forms of corruption in recent years, and has angered many South Africans. As a result, the Democratic Alliance (main opposition party) will possibly gain more votes, as might the recently formed Economic Freedom Fighters party. However, it is important to note that the leaders and constituents of these parties aren't the most attractive to the majority of South Africans--but neither is the behemoth of the ANC. It appears these three major parties (ANC, DA, EFF) are extreme or corrupt in one way or another, so elections will be more akin to choosing the lesser evil.

"Mr. Trump's Lost Cause takes its fuel from conspiratorial myths of all kinds, rehearsed for years on Trump media and social media platforms. Its guiding theories include: Christianity under duress and attack; large corrupt cities full of Black and brown people manipulated by liberal elites; Barack Obama as alien; a socialist movement determined to tax you into subservience to "big government"; liberal media out to crush family and conservative values; universities and schools teaching the young a history that hates America; resentment of nonwhite immigrants who threaten a particular national vision; and whatever hideous new version of a civil religion QAnon represents."

Russians head to the polls in what is expected to be an easy victory for the ruling United Russia Party. The power of the opposition parties has been significantly reduced thanks to crackdowns on political dissent by Putin and his government. It is interesting to watch Russia fall into authoritarianism while many lesser developed countries are moving towards democracy.

I wonder what it will take for Eastern European "democracies" to hold relatively fair elections (thinking of Belarus here as an example). Based on the corruption detailed in the article, it seems that dictator presidents kind of filled the vacuum left by the fall of the USSR and people haven't been able to break their iron hold since.

Yes, lots of corruption. Yet the 2004-05 orange revolution in Ukraine led to a time of high participation democracy. It's a mixed bag of mostly corrupt regimes, some more so than others, Russia the worst.

While Mexico is democratic and civil society is prevalent, corruption in the government and the danger posed by cartels mean big problems for activist who oppose either. Lacking government sovereignty has made it much easier for the country's cartels to carry out murders and corrupt judges have made the possibility of consequence slim.

Important article, Matteo. I'm not clear what you mean by "Lacking government sovereignty." I think you are referencing the fact that the cartels have more firepower than the police, so they can strong arm what they want? And corruption, of course, is rampant, in and out of government. How might a country with these problems return to a rule of law? It's an important question for the US as well, in the area of gun violence. Countries that have substantially lower levels of gun violence than the US have all sorts of (not necessarily the same) measures in place to keep gun violence down. Is there something about the political culture of the US that makes this impossible? Or is there a way to change the culture?

Thousands of criminals have been killed under the Philippine president, Duterte, due to a corrupt judicial system that leads citizens to feel unsafe. Therefore, these citizens search for short-term security in terms of murder.

MOSCOW - When the Russian authorities began a series of investigations this spring into the business affairs of a prominent opposition lawmaker, it was widely viewed as thinly veiled political retribution. But in a sign of how quickly the tables can now be flipped in such disputes, allies of the politician, Gennady V.

This article concerns attempts by Russian lawmakers to target opposition party members who they believe have violated Duma policy by "engaging in business or other paid activities". The controversy over the hypocrisy present in the aforementioned investigations sheds light on a question that interests me greatly: will Russia's corrupt and billionaire-driven government be sustainable in the long term? This particular case also raises questions about the mechanisms used by the ruling party, United Russia, in maintaining control over the Russian government.

This article also speaks to political culture, a key part of comparative politics analysis. Russia's transition to democracy has been halting, and many CoPo scholars say this is because Russia has a civic (and by extension political) culture that is used to authoritarianism of one sort or another. The notion of rule by democratic law is taking a long time to take hold. Is this explanation adequate? Compared to other countries?

Transparency International

Argues that the "incompetence" of the ANC has not been conducive for economic growth and has angered South Africans because "too little wealth trickles down" due to less economic competition from ANC's corruption. Says that the ANC needs more political competition, or should split to accurately reflect it's composition for voters: "the populist left and the fat-cat right". Contrasts this political one-sidedness with the rest of African countries. As I read this article, I wondered how the political conflict will affect the country--probably not to the point where development regresses, but it serves as a reminder that NICs have their own problems.

Karzai and corruption

This article is about India's preparations for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. There are accusations of corruption while footbridges collapse and athletes' dorms are considered "uninhabitable." There appears to be no central authority in charge of the event, leaving many to criticize India's political culture.

It's interesting to compare India's troubles in organizing the event to China's flawless execution of the Olympics. The article mentions that China had an easier time because, as a Communist state, it was able to relocate people and suppress objections fairly easily. In contrast, India, as a democracy, faced many delays caused by people refusing to move and protests by environmental groups. India also has a much more corrupt bureaucracy.

I think that is important to look at news from all over the world, and we have not been looking at latin america hardly at all in class. This article provides a snippet of what is going on in Brazil with corruption, and the article also gives a peek into the world of oil outside of the middle east.