Governance

On July 30, 2018, Zimbabwe will have its first post-Mugabe harmonised election. This article provides an overview of how the two leading contenders for the Presidency, E.D. Mnangagwa and Nelson Chamisa, have gone about winning the hearts and minds of Zimbabweans in the 2018 electoral race.

The 2018 Zimbabwe elections are characterised by continuities and discontinuities. While many chiefs continue to support Zanu-PF, a growing number has stood their ground and refused to partake in the repression of their people.

Geoengineering technologies are not yet deployable globally, but support for them is advancing fast, thanks to backing by powerful advocates eager to start experiments. But no silver bullet for climate change exists, and we must not abandon proven methods for the sake of a promise that one will be found.

For thousands of years people have taken to the sea to fish and trade. Wars have been fought as rival rulers claimed the rights to the sea and its exploitation. Those conflicts have continued to this day.

All graphs of the Ocean Atlas are published under a Creative Commons License CC BY SA 4.0. and can be continued to be used, processed and published under these conditions. You can find all downloads available in various formats (png, pdf) here.

Seven “Engagement Groups” circle around the G20 and attempt to influence its decisions. However, their relative power to influence outcomes differs greatly.

The Group of 20 (G20) is a “club” of nations with significant influence. There is a significant democratic deficit in the G20 since its decisions and actions are not governed by international law and it is not accountable to representative bodies.

President Duterte is the most controversial figure in the Philippines today, and arguably in the ASEAN region. He is now President of the Philippines, which chairs ASEAN in 2017. What is in store for the Philippines and for the chairmanship of ASEAN? 

Exactly one month ago the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power. The young blogger Avani Tewani analysed the first decisions of the new government and assessed the political measures.

Cambodia’s elections did not produce a clear winner – this alone is notable news for a country that has been governed by the same person for almost 29 years. However Prime Minister Hun Sen continues to sit tight at the reigns. What does this mean for the German development cooperation with Cambodia?

In July a three-year process of the reform of the Hungarian electoral procedure law has come to an end. With the changes in the voting system the leading Fidesz-KDNP party foremost seeks to convert its relative popular majority into an absolute majority in Parliament. An analysis of the reform's effects.  

A few months after Miloš Zeman first took office as president, we are now seeing the logical outcome of introducing a semi-presidential system. The current clash between the president and the Czech Parliament is a direct result of the political redistribution of power and could significantly influence the future form of the relationships between the government, the parliament, and the president.

On 3 July, the European Parliament adopted the resolution “on the situation of fundamental rights: standards and practices in Hungary”, which criticises the state of fundamental rights and the rule of law in Hungary. MEP Rui Tavares, the rapporteur in charge of wording the report, discusses the resolution’s afterlife and its implications.

The political crisis in the Czech Republic, which led to the fall of the government, was triggered by police investigation. The prosecution of three former MPs in the country triggered heated debates and reactions.

In the south of Mexico people are regenerating the society from the bottom up. It is a new kind of revolution without leaders or vanguards, which goes beyond development and globalization. It is about displacing the economy from the center of social life, reclaiming a communal way of being, encouraging radical pluralism, and advancing towards real democracy.

The current crisis is not a crisis of confidence, nor is it purely financial in character. The current crisis is, above all, a device for domination, spoliation, and precarisation. What we witness today is the depredation and expropriation of common goods, of wealth, and of rights. What we need is a common social, fiscal, and budgetary policy.

Germany appears to have come into its leadership role in the crisis involuntarily. Nevertheless, it is time that Germany also acknowledges that the crisis can only be overcome together with solidarity and stability and a sustainable future foundation for the European Union. 

The Euroblogosphere can be seen as a tool towards greater democratisation as i tconstitutes a community of individual citizens sharing information and ideas. Eurobloggers have the potential to become something like a popular lobby, giving voice to the interests and grievances of common Europeans.

A chain of rapid and unprecedented changes in Hungary’s Higher Education Act have been adopted and implemented recently by the government of Viktor Orbán. The changes share the intention of centralising power and establishing supreme control over all levels of education.

Businesses have long since grasped it – and now civil society is following suit: Whoever wants to make political gains can no longer afford to be solely active in their respective capitals. Whether it is about the environment, about consumer protection, about civil society in the digital age – increasingly Brussels is the place where the action is.