Posts by: Alex DeWaal
Egypt and Ethiopia have otherwise been locked in a low-intensity contest over which nation would dominate the region, undermining each other’s interests in Eritrea, Somalia and South Sudan. A quiet but long-sustained rivalry, it is one of those rarely noticed but important fault lines in international relations that allow other conflicts to rumble on.
This week, however, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt is expected to fly to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, to attend a summit of the African Union. He will also meet with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn of Ethiopia, a rare chance to shift the political landscape in northeastern Africa.
Continue Reading →Sanctions against spoilers can work if there is an effective and legitimate peace process. There is no such process in South Sudan today. Threats of force and sanctions by IGAD leaders are mere gestures of frustration, not components of a workable peace. However, sanctions could serve another purpose: fighting corruption. This is a worthwhile goal [...]
Continue Reading →Despite its impressive logistics, the army makes only a marginal contribution to international disaster relief—and often makes things worse. Nor do soldiers “fight” pathogens—and the language of warfare risks turning infected people and their caretakers into objects of fear and stigma. But, because of America’s politics of public finance, the army is the only tool we have. If civilian health programs were properly funded, they could have prevented the disaster.
Continue Reading →How did perhaps the most reviled African head of state of his generation manage to rehabilitate himself as a statesman? This act of political escapism—a “stay out of jail free” card—is the greatest accomplishment of former Blaise Compaoré, former president of Burkina Faso. A more appropriate title for him—and one that better captures his ability [...]
Continue Reading →International peacekeeping operations are deployed to complicated and troubled places. Often, reliable information is scarce, rumors and poorly-founded allegations are common, and interpretation of events is highly politicized. Recent controversies around what is going on in Darfur illuminate the need for much better data.
A former UN official, Aicha Elbasri, has made much-publicized allegations that [...]
Continue Reading →Memorandum prepared for the WPF’s seminar held 12 – 13 June, 2014: “The Political Marketplace”: Developing a Framework for Addressing the Real Politics of Coercion and Corruption. Memo also available as a pdf: Political Marketplace_de Waal.
This memorandum is intended to serve as an introduction to the framework of the “political marketplace,” [...]
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