Since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine, Russia has been waging an information war.

Since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine, Russia has been waging an information war that reflects its perception of its relationship towards the West as being that of a state of permanent conflict which needs the use of alternative tools to weaken both the enemy’s will and the capabilities.

Only a few months after it had been founded, the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) won 4.7% of the second votes in the federal elections, on 22 September 2013 – only 130,000 short of what was required for entry into the German Bundestag. Party and election researcher Oskar Niedermayer called it a "successful failure". 

Four years after the Jubilee block went into production, we can make an initial assessment of the governance of Ghana’s oil resources. In terms of its institutional structure, Ghana is seen as a model for the entire continent.

For decades, the Asian security environment has been characterized by multiple strategic rivalries with cascading effects. 

India’s approach to climate negotiations results from the interplay of two distinct logics, an external one and an internal one. While the external logic is derived from quantitative attributes at the aggregate level, such as the overall size of India’s economy, the internal logic is derived from qualitative attributes at the individual level such as per person incomes and productivity. For three decades, from the early 1970s to the early 2000s, India’s internal and external logics overlapped.

After a century of close development between power generation facilities and networks, the liberalisation of the electricity sector has broken this link in Europe. Long-distance transmission networks now play a key role in stimulating competition between generators by giving consumers access to remote power generation facilities.

Over the last few decades, in order to limit the risk of collateral damage, tailoring the effects of firepower has become a main concern for Western armed forces.

To avoid the pitfalls of historic divisions, climate negotiators decided to go down the self-differentiation route and leave legal matters to be resolved during the last steps of the process. The national contributions drafted by each party provide a robust basis for discussion, but we still need to ensure that these are appropriate and also monitor their implementation. The credibility of the Paris Agreement will be determined by these final procedural trade-offs.  

Written by Ifri's research team and its network of associates, the new RAMSES 2016 analyses geopolitics on a worldwide scale. The major theme of this 34th edition is Climate: A new chance? In addition, RAMSES 2016 tackles the insertion of Africa in globalization and the uncertainties of democracy today in post-industrial societies, but also in the South.

Water scarcity in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states has traditionally been addressed by finding new ways of producing water. The high costs of desalinated water production are borne by the State through subsidies. As this trend is not environmentally or economically sustainable, new strategies are now giving priority to cost recovery and efficient resource management.

Adaptation issues started to gain momentum from the Copenhagen conference in 2009. Up until then, international negotiations had focused on mitigation policies. However, the increase in weather events and the inadequate efforts to hold back global warming now make adaptation a key issue in discussions around the Paris agreement.

Are women going to vote massively for Hillary Clinton in 2016, the same way African-Americans voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012?  This paper examines the different aspects of the gender gap in the US, social debates around women's issues and the way the Democratic candidate may approach the different segments of the American electorate.

In the sphere of space research, France-India collaboration began in the early 1960s, with France providing assistance to India’s Rohini sounding rockets programme. Over the years, France has played a constructive role in helping India to develop its ground and space infrastructure, as well as its launching platforms and human resources. In point of fact, France has emerged as one of India’s most dependable partner in the realm of space.

The current crisis in the Mediterranean is a part of an unprecedented global migratory movement. 

The European Union (EU) has been trying to establish a common European asylum system for fifteen years. This project has been stalled by disagreements between states, each looking out for its own national interests.

The way in which bargaining mandates are granted to the Commission for the purpose of leading the European Union’s commercial negotiations make it a unique negotiator.

China’s “One Belt, One Road” project, also known as the “New Silk Road”, aims to create a vast infrastructure network connecting three continents, with China playing the central role.

Since gaining independence in 1960, Somalia has enjoyed only a few periods of stability. 

Piracy and armed robbery at sea are a threat to security in the hydrocarbon-rich Gulf of Guinea.

Successive attempts to institutionalise Islam in France have not resulted in an entirely satisfactory outcome.

A wide-ranging look at the way Gazprom interacts with an increasingly challenging global gas market for Russia.

Algeria has appeared strangely calm despite an explosive regional environment. Nevertheless, a number of storm clouds lurk on the horizon: the fall of oil prices in a highly resource-driven economy; a decrease in revenues that have stood to maintain social peace; paralysis of the political system; instability in the Maghreb (Tunisia, Libya…) and the Sahel (Mali…). Algiers is faced with many difficult choices. How should the succession of president Bouteflika be settled in a society that is increasingly depoliticized but that nevertheless contests the regime’s opacity? Is it possible to finally diversify an economy that is still structured on rent from the country’s resources? How can the country protect itself from external disorder? As the major military power in the region, Algeria has followed a path of non-engagement in external affairs for decades. This is no longer viable. At both the internal and external level, the regime will have to demonstrate flexibility in dealing with new, potentially dangerous situations.

This issue of Politique étrangère also deals with two major themes of 2015: the 100 year anniversary of the Armenian genocide, which was a wasted opportunity to link Ankara and Erevan, but has proven to be revealing Turkish contradictions, among other things; the shifting of international migrations, in particular those involving Europe and the Mediterranean region.

A range of other topics are also explored in this issue that strike at the heart of many of the most pressing international debates today: The negotiation of a possible Transtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Chinese visions of the “New Silk Roads”, the state of Somalia, piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, and relations between Muslims states and Islam in France.

When President Bouteflika came to power in 1999, he sought to liberalise the country’s economy. But these reforms were reversed after only a few years.

Having been formed in large part by the legacy of the post-independence diplomatic process, by forced withdrawal during the civil war and fixation on a few regional issues, Algerian diplomacy has to redefine itself in a rapidly changing world.

Given its colonial history, Algeria does not want foreign powers involving themselves in internal affairs.

During the Cold War, Algeria was one of the Soviet Union’s favored partners. Ties between the two countries deteriorated during the 1990s before going through a renewal around fifteen years ago. 

At the close of World War I, denial of the Armenian genocide became a central point in Turkey’s official doctrine.

The 100^th anniversary of the Armenian genocide will not mark a great historical moment in Armenian-Turkish relations.

A distinct feature of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first year in office was the remarkable speed and alacrity with which he moved on external engagement. During his first twelve months as Prime Minister, he travelled to almost twenty countries in different parts of the world. Indeed, Modi appeared to be guided by the impression that high rates of economic growth cannot be generated only by domestic policies and initiatives.

Gangs have relied on cyberspace to evolve. New information technologies have allowed them to speed up and globalize their operations.

When Dmitry Medvedev announced in late 2014 that the presence of ministers and other officials should be sharply increased on the boards of public companies, observers were surprised, considering that four years before the former President started a campaign to remove them from the very same structures.

Since the April 2015 shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, the right of asylum has become a priority in European talks. However, states have remained reluctant and sometimes hostile to measures of solidarity recommended by the European Commission. Such tensions raise the question of the European Union’s capacity to enforce a European asylum policy.

Since the 1980's the incarceration rate in the United States has climbed to unprecedened levels. Today, the United States incarcerates a higher proportion of its population than any other country in the world. Activists have long called for sentencing reform, recognizing the criminal justice system's racial bias and failure to rehabilitate. President Obama's recent call to action propelled the debate on the issue forward at an unprecedented pace but will proposed reforms be enough to end mass incarceration ?

The Asia-Pacific region is now more than ever a priority for China’s foreign policy. The combined economic, energy and security interests concentrated in the region are of key importance for Beijing.

This brief paper analyzes the energy relations between Russia and its “new” energy partnerships – with China and Turkey – that the Kremlin tends to publicly promote as an alternative to energy relations with the West.

The battle flag of General Robert E. Lee’s famed Army of Northern Virginia, commonly known as the Confederate Flag or the Southern Cross, has become the symbol of the 1861-1865 Southern secession and the most widespread sign of Southern regional identity. Today it can be found flying across the South and on everything from clothing to bumper stickers.

For the new geopolitical reality called “Chinafrica”, the future may not be destined to be as radiant as the official win-win rhetoric would have us believe. Although the beginning of the century was notable for the exponential development of Sino-African trade (which grew from $10 billion in 2000 to $210 billion in 2013), a series of emerging problems seem to be signalling that the Sino-African honeymoon is over and that we are back with the harsh realities of the globalised economy.

Canada and the United States enjoy one of the most fruitful relationship in the world. Yet, several points of contention have appeared in recent years over the Northwest Passage and, more importantly, the Keystone XL pipelines. Such disagreements must be analyzed in order to fully grasp the state of the bilateral relationship in 2015.

In this article our research fellow Barbara Kunz summarises the broad outlines of German foreign policy to the Swedish public.