This is a general catch all thread for people who want to talk about international relations or foreign policy. Pretty much anything is welcome, whether people want to give updates from other countries, talk about the Ukraine War or some other current event that’s grabbed your attention, or even just share any interesting books or articles you’ve been reading lately. I like to get the ball rolling with some general coverage of a bunch of countries, including some I think people here will be generally interested in and some people might not already follow too closely.
Spain
Following the ruling Socialist party’s poor May performance in municipal elections, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez dissolved parliament and called new snap elections. Spain will now be heading to the polls on the 23rd amidst a month of heatwaves and flooding.
The center right Popular Party (PP) is currently in the lead, trailed by the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). A PP victory raises the spectre of a coalition with Vox, one of Europe’s newest far right parties, who are currently polling similarly with the far left Sumar, the most likely ally for the PSOE. A conservative victory seems like the most likely outcome but it’s still too soon to say.
Ghana
Ghana recently split its four administrative regions into six. This might not sound like a big deal but the border lines split several ethnic enclaves apart. Despite the fact that these regions don’t actually have self-governance or anything, the divisions ended up being extremely contentious and the security forces had to deployed in the Volta region to deal with growing ethnic unrest.
Senegal
The last few months have been stressful in Senegal, with a high profile sexual assault case disbarring the main opposition leader from running for their upcoming election. All eyes were on current President Macky Sall, to see if he planned on running for an illegal third term. Amid mounting deadly protests he has finally announced that he will actually retire at the end of his term, leaving the field wide open.
Zimbabwe
The ZANU-PF party in Zimbabwe has held power since independence in 1980, with the current President taking power right after Mugabe via a coup and then a fraudulent election. New elections are next month featuring the same opposition candidate as the last one. Unfortunately there are already worrying signs that they won’t be free and fair, with the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change having members arrested and rallies banned.
Various growth reports for Zimbabwe have actually been decent, though inflation is still gonzo high at 175% YoY and Zimbabwe’s government health insurer for federal employees seems to be collapsing due to mismanagement.
Japan
Following Japan reestablishing trade relationships with Korea the previous week, Europe has finally lifted their 2011 post Fukushima restrictions on Japanese food imports. Japan and Ukraine also held a summit in Lithuania Wednesday where Zelensky is expected to further request Kishida’s assistance in rebuilding Ukrainian infrastructure. This is a normal role for Japan to fill as they are the second largest aid donor in the world and have quite a bit of infrastructure experience.
CW: sexual violence
There has been a fair amount of public uproar over Japan’s outdated laws on sexual harassment and violence, which has led to a flurry of reforms. They raised penalties for taking nonconsensual sexual photos of someone to up to three years in prison, expanded the definition of assault to require consent (as opposed to physical resistance) and expanded the statute of limitations, and raised the age of consent to 16 from 13, where it has stood since 1907 (it was often higher at the individual prefecture level).
This continues in Abe’s footsteps of making Japan a generally better country for women and is newsworthy on its own, but I also bring it up to show how Japan’s continuously dominant party, the Liberal Democratic Party, has remained in power so long. They’re a big tent party that’s held together by cliques based on personality rather than policy, which allows them to practice a fair amount of policy flexibility to the advantage of draining away popular wedge issues. Basically whenever they hear the opposition find an issue that’s popular with the public they say “actually we’re totally into this idea.” Then they take the lead on passing it to strip away any momentum the opposition would have gotten off of it. Or, if they don’t actually want to pass it, they just say it’s in committee for a while and release various bulletins about their plans. This has the downside of keeping one party entrenched in power (plus some other electoral shenanigans, like if the LDP calls elections only they will know in advance and have been preparing), but has the advantage of keeping the party actually decently responsive to democratic public sentiment.
Turkey
In recent months, Sweden has made efforts to meet Turkey’s demands, amending its Constitution, passing new counterterrorism legislation and agreeing to extradite several Turks who stand accused of crimes in Turkey. But Swedish courts have blocked other extraditions, and Swedish officials have said that they cannot override their country’s free-speech protections.
Turkey was in rare form this week, throwing another wrench in the Swedish NATO ascension process by bringing up a new demand to greenlight Sweden: that Turkey be allowed to join the EU. Turkey having made almost no progress on their EU ascension goals meant this could only happen if the EU waived nearly all of their normal requirements. The US replied that it supported Turkey’s “aspirations”.
Turkey has finally relented, seemingly, after negotiations that are not yet fully clear, and Sweden will be joining NATO.
Erdogan will also meet soon with Putin over the grain deal from last year, which is set to expire next week. Russia has expressed unwillingness to extend the deal, which could throw another crisis situation wide open if the world loses access to Ukraine’s grain exports (“the U.N. argues that it has benefited those [developing world] states by helping lower food prices by more than 20% globally”).
Due to Turkey’s negotiating leverage here and with Sweden they’ve gained themselves quite a bit of influence, if not much in the way of good will. Erdogan will be visiting the Gulf later this month, where he has also been building alliances, particularly with Qatar.
Colombia
The recently concluded ceasefire between the government and the rebel group ELN has finally come into effect, with both the rebels and the armed forces halting attacks. Ideally it is supposed to last six months, which would be the longest period of peace since the 60s. This is a major victory for Colombia and for President Gustavo Petro, whose administration thus far has been wracked by corruption scandals and stillwater reforms. They are now separately entering into negotiations with the much smaller conflict with a faction of FARC that rejected the last peace agreement.
A new legislative session will start soon and he plans to re-submit his pension and labor reforms laws. The Finance Ministry has also released their new budget with some ambitious spending raises which critics say might exceed budgetary rules Colombia has in place to reduce their deficits. The Central Bank has held steady on interest rates this month and is anticipated to begin to cut them soon as inflation recovers.
Brazil
Lula looks to be on his way to pass a major consumption tax reform that previous administrations have failed on. It remains to be seen if it can pass the Senate but even a surprising amount of conservative law makers voted in favor. Lula has successfully continued his campaign to replace the Central Bank governors with his allies in hopes of driving them towards interest rate cuts, and also successfully elevated his personal lawyer to the Supreme Court.
At the recent Mercosur summit he pushed for Bolivia’s ascension and for “the Mercosur trade bloc to advance in talks for deals with Canada, South Korea and Singapore, while aiming to increase commerce with other countries in Latin America and Asia…In addition to those three nations, Lula said, Mercosur could also "explore new negotiation fronts" with China, Indonesia, Vietnam and countries in Central America and the Caribbean. The Brazilian leader reaffirmed he is committed to completing the trade agreement struck in 2019 between the bloc and the European Union, but again called some addenda proposed by EU 'unacceptable'."
Guatemala
In excellent headlines today we have “Top tribunal certifies Guatemala’s election result minutes after another court suspends party”.
Guatemala’s Supreme Court has given the thumbs up to the first round of elections but the Attorney General has now suspended the anti-corruption underdog Bernardo Arévalo. As best as I can tell, their constitution forbids suspending a candidate mid-election.
Thailand
Thanks to @cake for the breaking news update, Thailand's underdog progressive candidate, Pita Limjaroenrat, has been blocked from the office of the Prime Minister by the military-appointed senate.
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Notes -
How well do the Turks and most ME countries get along? Do they have sore points from the mess in Syria?
Relations with the Saudi block, so to speak, were rocky for a while, with Syria and Iran ironically being some of the only things they got along over. Saudi Arabia and Turkey both have desires of being major influential powers within the region in often incompatible ways (There is also of course colonial history between Turkey and Saudi Arabia but it didn't prevent them from coordinating on a fair amount of stuff in the twentieth century, like the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War.) This has led to them diplomatically or militarily supporting opposite (or at least conflicting) sides in proxy conflicts in Egypt, Libya, Syria, the Nagorno-Karabakh War, and so forth. Both countries spent a lot of the 2010s denouncing each other's expansionist ambitions. Jamal Kashoggi was also of course a Turkish citizen and his murder plummetted relations to rock bottom levels.
Part of Turkey's current alliance with Qatar is actually a reflection of the same rift that grew between both countries and Saudia Arabia, in large due to Qatar and Turkey's support for former Egyptian leader Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is considered a terrorist organization in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and of course in Egypt itself.
In 2017 you might remember there was a big diplomatic crisis where those countries plus Jordan severded ties with Qatar and blockaded them for sponsoring terrorism and dealing with Iran (and for publishing Al Jazeera), featuring the awesome and unfortunately aborted Saudi proposal to dig a giant moat around Qatar and turn it into an island. Turkey was caught up and threatened with sanctions as well, and Qatar's isolation drove them further into the Turkish camp (where they were already heading).
Meanwhile the remaining Gulf countries were normalizing relations with Israel as Turkey was simultaneously growing further apart from the Jewish state. This was partially a PR ploy for Erdogan to enhance his legitimacy among the Gulf states' own poopulations, who tend to be much more anti-Israel than their leaders, and led to some perplexing moments, like him denouncing the Gulf leaders for recognizing Israel (which Turkey also totally does).
Outside of Azerbaijan most of these proxy conflicts didn't leave regimes with much fondness for Turkey, and the realignment left Turkey a bit isolated in the Middle East and more broadly (ie Saudi Arabia also has a growing alliance with Turkey's main European rival, Greece). Erdogan has responded to this by trying to restore relationships for the past couple years, including in Saudi Arabia and Israel. He withdrew his 5-D chess move to block the East-Med pipeline by somehow linking Turkey's territorial waters with Libya's, and offered to collaborate on Israel on a gas pipeline instead, he's worked together with Saudi Arabia and the UAE to align their Libya policy, toned down the Muslim Brotherhood support in Egypt, and so on. The current Gulf tour is to hopefully further cement good relations and attract a bunch of Gulf investment into the Turkish economy.
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