During the 19th century, Westerners provided ideological justifications for their colonization, namely spreading the Enlightenment across the globe. This project was received favorably until the second half of the 20th century. Over the last 20 years, it has met new hostility. The “universal values” promoted by the West are viewed today as a form of imperialism to be opposed – especially by China, Russia and Turkey.

Despite Indonesia’s reputation for a traditionally moderate brand of Islam, religious conservativism is gaining considerable political traction in the lead up to this April’s presidential election.

Although not akin to the protectionist policies practiced by the United States through the 1930s, the trade war launched by the Trump administration since early 2018 challenges the principles and institutions of free trade.

In 2016, Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into the European Union (UE) reached a record high, in contrast to the steady decline in FDI flows from the EU to China. Beijing is looking for markets and strategic assets and particularly targets advanced technologies in major European economies, deploying an aggressive and sometimes opaque strategy.

In Germany, an important role is ascribed to development policy when considering the question of how to deal with the causes of displacement and irregular migration. Development policy seeks to enable (potential) migrants to enjoy brighter prospects in their countries of origin through job creation measures so that they do not embark on the dangerous journey to Europe (or Germany) in the first place.

Over the past decade, facilitating the widespread deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) and enabling their integration within the energy systems has become a central priority for various international organizations (IO) and initiatives. 

Since Donald Trump’s rise to power, American foreign policy has become more unpredictable. Nonetheless, several coherent strategies stand out, in particular those that advocate a nationalist approach. An examination of Trump’s entourage also reveals some more conventional figures, who may exert some degree of influence. However, there may yet be surprises to come.

In recent years, Russia has focused on developing its relations with Southeast Asia, particularly in the areas of economic ties and arms sales.

From May 23 to 29, over 300 million Europeans are set to elect a new Parliament for a five-year term.

The General Data Protection Regulation and the energy sector

The 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine take place against the backdrop of the continuing “hybrid war” with Russia, but are also marked by the visible successes of the Ukrainian leadership in strengthening the country’s defenses, reviving its economic growth and implementing pro-European policies.

The Global Climate Action Summit held in September 2018 in California has highlighted the importance of cities for promoting clean energy solutions and for combatting climate change. While energy policies in most countries depend primarily on national governments, cities have the possibility to develop and implement innovative solutions and ambitious policies. Chinese cities should be at the core of these developments, as they are confronted with many energy and climate challenges, often at an unprecedented scale: notably air quality, traffic congestion, energy security and massive consumption of building materials. For instance, outdoor air pollution in China has reportedly caused 1 million premature deaths in 2016, and in 2014 only 8 out of 74 Chinese cities would meet the national standards in terms of air quality.

The “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration” was adopted in Marrakesh on 10 and 11 December 2018, after 18 months of consultation and negotiation. It is presented as the first United Nations’ agreement on a comprehensive approach to international migration in all its aspects. 

Indonesia’s Indo-Pacific strategy is driven less by a coherent national strategy than by a choice made due to the lack of alternatives resulting from Indonesia’s domestic and international weaknesses.

The Franco-German couple has long been charac­terized by divergent trajectories on nuclear matters, and antagonist historical decisions still frame the current relationship.

According to a 2008 estimate, the Arctic hosts approximately 412 billion barrels of oil equivalent of conventional oil and gas resources. And since then, following the so-called shale revolution and technology improvements, numbers have gone even higher. 

China’s dominance in the production of rare earth elements symbolizes the competition for once obscure sets of mineral resources in our increasingly digital, low carbon world. 

On 22 January 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel sign the Treaty of Aachen on “Franco-German Cooperation and Integration.” The document is set to complement the original Elysée Treaty from 1963, signed by President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. 

On May 21st 2019, Malawi will hold its tripartite elections, where voters will vote for the President, Members of Parliament and local Councillors. 2019 will also mark the 25 years of multiparty politics in Malawi since the one-party regime presided by Hastings Kamuzu Banda came to an end in 1994.

Despite a relative weakening since 2017, the international jihadist movement should continue to pose a genuine threat over the next decade.

Although it had never entirely disappeared, the surface-to-air threat was mitigated for three decades by Western air superiority. It now benefits from a modernization and dissemination momentum that will increasingly hinder expeditionary forces’ freedom of action. 

Nowadays, numerous actors are involved in military cooperation programs aiming to strengthen African armed forces and build special partnerships. 

In recent years, experts and onlookers have noted a convergence of geopolitical interests between the United States and India.

The middle classes have at times been heralded to be a guarantee for democracy. Studies that find a positive correlation (which should not be confused with causation) often use national economic data as a proxy for class and compare it to the current regime type.[1]

Interest in deep seabed mining is growing due to the increasing in global demand for metals and recent technological progress. Critical metals are used in low carbon energy technologies, as well as in the mobility, electronics and the defense industries. Metals become strategic when they are essential to the economy of a state, its defense and energy sector and when their supply presents high risks. Uneven distribution of resources and differences in cost of production have led to a market characterized by oligopolies (China for rare earth elements, or the Democratic Republic of Congo for cobalt). As the remaining onshore resources of critical metals appear complex and costly to exploit, attention has been shifting to deep sea resources. 

Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus have long been a blind-spot for Chinese diplomacy and economic policy. For over a decade, however, China has been laying the foundations of a long-term presence in the area, a process which has accelerated since the end of 2013 with the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Strategic competition between India and China in the Indian Ocean is growing and has the potential to profoundly impact the stability and security of the region. The Indian Ocean is becoming the scene of a sustained contest that in some ways resembles strategic competition during the Cold War.

In September 2010, China stopped all exports of rare earths and associated products to Japan, depriving Japan’s industry of essential raw materials. This decision highlighted the tensions around the trade of critical materials and China’s monopoly on a group of particular metals. Western countries had already taken some initiatives so as to reduce, or at least to analyse their vulnerabilities in the segment of critical materials. 

The issue of the digital transformation of the industry provoked in France as in Germany the return of the state and the introduction of a subsidiary industrial policy. Feeling threatened in its industrial leadership, Germany mobilized its resources through industry 4.0 by building a vision around the concept of “cyber-physical system” before developing in each Land an accompanying offer. France has forged the concept of the industry of the future by following a logic of modernization of the production tool, reinforcing particularly the automation and building on the integration of new technological bricks.

The opioid crisis in the U.S. has reached increasingly tragic proportions – accounting for two thirds of the 72,000 overdose deaths of 2017.

What role do political values play in Europe-China relations 70 years after the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

As Brexit fast approaches, what can be said about the key issues? Politique étrangère summarizes them with four questions.

The aim of multilateral trade as established after the Second World War was to prevent trade wars.

Despite the development of artificial intelligence (AI) only being in its early stages, it has already had an impact on armed forces.

The Rohingya issue involves a complex national and regional history.

In a context defined by the failure of military interventions, multiple attacks, and criticized parliamentary elections, uncertainty reigns over the country.

Mexico’s Energy Reform (hereafter, the Reform) enacted on December 20^th 2013, and the Secondary Laws adopted on August 11^th 2014, marked a milestone in the history and the development of the Mexican energy sector.

These major changes were unexpected considering that multiple sectorial reforms pursued since the 1990s had systemically failed to address the structural problems which had been mounting over the years.

African borders are well-known for their porosity. Although they are crucial economic interfaces, they also crystallize political and security tensions, in both inter-state wars and intra-state conflicts involving rebels or autonomist groups. 

This study analyses the various mechanisms that explain the leakage of the main source wealth in Nigeria at all levels of the production and commercialization of oil and gas, from the wellheads, with the bunkering of pipelines, up to the export of crude oil and the import of refined products, including through capital flight to tax havens. 

Often described as an “ungoverned area”, the Niger-Libya border is nevertheless at the centre of major economic, political and security challenges. Both the Libyan authorities and the Nigerien state are struggling to establish tight control over this particularly isolated area.