As the neoliberal hegemony asserts itself as the dominant economic system of the modern West, a progressive branch of the electorate identifies the Nordic Social Democracies as the ideal alternative. Idealized as isolated utopian societies, in which welfare systems reflect those predating the Washington Consensus and the current state of oscillation between austerity and populist short-term public spending, there is more to these systems than what meets the eye.

The Ethiopian general election, held on the 1st of June, failed to meet a number of basic standards for a competitive democratic election according to most international observers. With fractured security, particularly in the Amhara and Tigray regions, as well as a lack of institutional capacity, organising truly representative national elections has been difficult.

In February 2025, a quiet but consequential signing ceremony took place in Kuala Lumpur. Executives from Shanghai Spacesail Technologies Co. Ltd., the firm behind China's Qianfan constellation, also known as SpaceSail, shook hands with Malaysia's MEASAT Global Berhad, one of Southeast Asia's most established satellite operators. The memorandum of understanding covered low-Earth orbit broadband services, direct-to-device communications, and satellite-based Internet of Things s

The formation of ethnic enclaves - areas populated predominantly by non-native migrant populations - has been a tendency defined not by design, but by labour market incorporation. Yet, these points of concentration have turned significant in the political debate about immigration- both in their influence as points of migrant political mobilisation and as a demonstration of the visibility of migrant populations. Thus, ethnic enclaves play a contradictory role both as sources o

As debt distress and climate vulnerability collide, countries have begun using forests, reefs, and carbon sinks as bargaining tools in sovereign finance using nouveau financial instruments like debt-for-nature swaps. Whilst debt-for-nature swaps are not a cure for sovereign-indebtedness in sovereign finance, but rather a sign of incessant fiscal stress, it is a tool for alleviating this stress. This is geopolitically relevant because whilst it empowers countries to bargain fo

On April 25th 2026, the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and the al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) launched the largest coordinated military offensive in Mali since the Tuareg rebellion of 2012. Defence Minister Sadio Camara was killed, Kidal fell within days, JNIM declared a total siege of Bamako, and Russia"s Africa Corps suffered its most visible battlefield setback since deploying in 2021.

According to the Swiss far-right, Switzerland is facing a growing problem: immigration. The right-wing coalition dominating Swiss politics has recently drawn headlines for its controversial proposal of a referendum for a policy capping Switzerland’s population to 10 million until 2050. The country’s population has faced steady growth over the years from around 7.2 million in the early 2000’s at a rate of around 0.9% per year to more than 9 million today, substantial when com

On the 18th of March, the EU Commission decided to move towards a 28th regime for European companies, the details of which were communicated to the European Parliament. This new policy, officially called ‘EU Inc.’ is framed as a decisive step for accelerating the push for competitiveness and security in an era of change. While the European continent is bursting with innovation, as over one-fifth of all scientific publications worldwide originate in the EU, European innovative

Politics, strategy, and international trade all converge in a small number of maritime chokepoints, where geography is increasingly leveraged to project power and maintain deterrence. The Straits of Hormuz crisis highlights the growing complexity of maritime governance in these narrow waterways, revealing an expanding divide between the letter of the law and its application in practice. UNCLOS continues to remain the foundational framework for maritime regulation, but its