The Democratic Party relies today on very different segments of the U.S. electorate, making it impossible for a Democratic President to sustain long-term public support. In the context of the current campaign, Prof. Nicol Rae provides an analysis of the Party's electoral strategy, since 2008 and beyond 2012.

In the past 2 years, Greece has experienced its most severe economic crisis of the post-World War II period. While it appeared at first not to have been hit particularly hard by the global economic recession that started in 2008, the effects of the recession and the acute internal crisis of public finances became visible in late 2009.

On May 16 2010, a few weeks after its first elections, the government of the semi-autonomous province of South Sudan (GoSS) had to confront two rebellions in the Jonglei Province. South Sudan may appear unified behind the banner of the SPLM/A, but in fact it is nothing of the kind.

Three hundred million people belonging to the middle classes of Africa; three hundred million of potential consumers: an image of this kind is enough to make many an entrepreneur start dreaming. In fact, whereas for many years Afro-pessimism has dominated public opinion in the West, what seems to be the new trend in fashion, in both the media and economic circles, is now an exaggerated Afro-optimism.

Deepening their partnership, Ifri and the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS) are launching a series of op-eds, written both by Ifri and CIGS experts. This new series aims at providing the European and Asian public with original and different visions on the rapidly evolving international affairs.

"Escalation", the tendency of belligerents to increase the force or breadth of their attacks to gain advantage or avoid defeat, is not a new phenomenon. Systematic thought about how to manage it, however, did not crystallize until the Cold War and the invention of nuclear weapons. 

The Center for Asian Studies of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) organized on 9 December 2011 a round table discussion regarding the future of the ongoing reconciliation process in Sri Lanka, entitled ‘Post-War Sri Lanka: Roads to Reconciliation'.