Demokratie International

Whilst the refugee crisis has dominated debates in Germany since 2015, it plays a subordinate role in France where the war on Islamist terrorism and tackling the problem with military intervention.

As Europeans struggle to deal with the tensions between growing right-wing, xenophobic parties and new refugee and immigrant populations, there is much to be learned from the US immigrant rights movement.

Greece as a key migrant entry point needs extra resources to secure the EU’s external border and provide humanitarian assistance. It's vital to manage the burden sharing and secure a pragmatic agreement with Turkey to stem migrant flows and facilitate returns.

Czech society is polarised by attitudes to refugees. This is absurd given that fact that only 1,156 have applied for asylum in a country of ten million people. Xenophobia and hysteria drive the debate.

The repression of NGOs and other civil society groups increases worldwide, which leads to a decline of democratic freedom. This issue should be added to the agenda of national parliaments and multilateral organizations.

The conflict, which has flared in the South Caucasus around Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia serves as a reminder that there are other regional conflicts that demand Europe´s attention. And Europe’s response will be no less important than in the case of Ukraine.

Much of Myanmar’s natural resource wealth is located in ethnic areas. There are deep-rooted ethnic grievances, many of which related to the – justified – claim that past military governments have plundered what is perceived as the minorities’ own resources.

Following peaceful protests against a contested third term of the president, violence has once again escalated in Burundi. Efforts to end the crisis will continue to fail if they ignore the country’s history and its political landscape.

In the US presidential primaries, foreign policy issues have yet to play much of a role – but this may soon change.

On 13 February, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in front of the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest. The protest was organised by school teachers, but a number of other unions joined the initiative to express their solidarity.

Five years after the democratic upheaval Morocco is closing down spaces for civic and human rights.

Lebanese bureaucracy, traumatized people, and little international support: There are numerous day-to-day problems in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon. Majd Chourbaji helps to solve them.

Peace, federalism, development, and poverty - this is the interlinked "cluster", which has to be at the top of the NLD’s agenda. On Aung San Suu Kyi's political challenges in the coming years. [external_media:soundcloud.com/boellstiftung/myanmar-after-the-elections]

Myanmar has a decades-long history of brutal ethnic conflicts. In view of this the party of democratic struggle did unexpectedly well in last year’s election.

When analysing the structure of party supporters and the shifts in their preferences, parliamentary elections 2015 in Poland can be seen as a reversal of several trends which have already shaped the Polish politics since 1989.

Syria and the fight against ISIS is the dominating foreign policy topic in the current U.S. presidential debates. The discourse on no-fly zones and efforts to topple Bashar al-Assad show that divisions run deep and beyond party lines. 

Engulfed in an environmental scandal about lead-contaminated drinking water, the city of Flint, Michigan, has come to epitomize the decrepit state of America’s infrastructure, environmental racism, and mismanagement at the hands of public authorities.

In 2015, the hbs head office in collaboration with regional offices in Afghanistan and Pakistan arranged a delegation visit to Berlin and Brussels from to discuss country situation, women parliamentarians performance, gender equality, peace building, shrinking spaces for women rights activism, and share the findings of the comparative study “Unmaking Political Patriarchy through Gender Quotas?” with a wide range of stakeholders at the European level.

In his support of, in and for Paris, President Obama has emerged as the first real “Climate President” of the United States. Nevertheless, whether or not his country and predecessor will remain faithful to this legacy remains uncertain.

The research project highlights the national level parliaments and critically reviews quota designs, practices and experiences of women parliamentarians on both quota seats as well as general seats. A delegation of women parliamentarians, together with civil society activists from Afghanistan and Pakistan, went on a visit to Berlin and Brussels to discuss the first key findings.