China’s soft historical and current approaches to soft power have been characterized by state-sponsored media programs, the establishment of Confucius Institutes and the policy implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative. Soft power, a term coined by American political scientist ...

The beginning of August kicks off apple season in Kashmir, but ungathered fruit rots across orchids in the region. Schools and colleges remain deserted, and markets and streets lack their usual flutter. Shops remain open for a handful of hours ...

In 1979, Deng Xiaoping, former leader of the People’s Republic of China, implemented a one-child policy in China which ordained that each family could have only one offspring. Fear of overpopulation and another famine occurring soon after the devastating Great ...

The global gag rule (GGR), also known as the Mexico City Policy, has been limiting the resources of countless foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) over the last four decades. Despite studies in sub-Saharan Africa revealing that the global gag rule is ...

In its most recent presidential election in December 2017, Chile elected conservative billionaire Sebastian Piñera over leftist candidate Alejandro Guillier. The decisive 55-45 percent victory signals a political shift for the country which has been dominated by the center-left coalition ...

Hopes for political stability in Afghanistan were let down this February with news that another governor of an Afghan province refused to obey President Ashraf Ghani’s order to leave. Although Governor Abdulkarim Khaddam of the Northern Samangan province gave up ...

The first thing one notices when walking around the Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank is the litter. Children walk down the street to the neighborhood playground, making sure to avoid empty bottles and deserted chairs. Some of the ...

On July 6, 2017, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced Cyprus’ 11th failed peace talk to reunify the north and south in 43 years. A divided nation since 1974, Cyprus is located in the eastern Mediterranean at a strategic commercial ...

There’s something fishy about American politics, and it boils down to this—our political divisions on every issue don’t really fit neatly onto a left-right axis. Something else appears to be at work, and according to various scholars, that something is ...

Behind the landmark climate deal that came out of Paris almost a month ago, one negotiator’s success deserves reflection. Izabella Teixeira was in a complicated position. As Brazil’s environment minister, she was tasked with a mediating role despite environmental negligence ...