Democracy and Reform

New USAID funds and a pending strategy for enhanced development cooperation could facilitate reforms that foster a better economic environment for women, and for the kingdom as a whole.

The UN committee’s chances of success are limited but still worth pursuing to a prompt conclusion, in part to prevent Russia from draping its window dressing over an illegitimate process.

Local and international actors should aim to do more than just freeze regional conflicts; they should also seize the pandemic’s momentum to address preexisting political issues.

The Syrian leader’s dramatic war of words with his massively wealthy cousin may seem like a major fracture inside the regime, but the dynamics of past and present family disputes paint a different picture.

Disease prevention efforts in Idlib illustrate the movement's political evolution and its differences from the Islamic State, but the pandemic may still hit the area hard given inconsistent implementation and years of regime destruction.

Throughout his tenure as leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas has studiously avoided grooming a successor, instead consolidating his control over numerous Palestinian entities and sidelining officials he perceived as threatening to his rule. When he eventually exits the scene, Abbas will leave many leadership roles to be filled—including in the PLO, Fatah movement, and national security agencies.

Although the process demonstrates the success of Moscow’s agile military and diplomatic strategy in Syria, it also highlights the Kremlin’s inability (or unwillingness) to resolve the interminable crisis.

Despite Erdogan’s pandemic missteps and repressively conservative agenda, Turkey’s problem-solving opposition parties and the secularist youths who support them give hope that democracy will endure.

His father, King Hussein, had always wanted it that way, he just never told anybody. Except me.