Politics & The World

In 2015, Michael Lüders wrote a seminal book on the hypocrisy of Western[1] politics in the Middle East. Allegedly driven by Western ‘liberal values,’ interventions from outside powers have been anything but constructive, leaving the region in a much worse, much more chaotic situation than before. Taking Lüders’ major claim as a guiding narrative, it […]

Politics & The World

“Never before have I seen national governments so weakened by the forces of populism and paralysed by the risk of defeat in the next elections,” Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, worriedly expressed in the State of the Union Speech on September 14, 2016. And it is truly worrying. The far-right anti-establishment movement, characterised […]

Politics & The World

On 20 March 2016, the siblings Javid and Nahid Raoufi and their friend Abdul Majid Rahimi arrived on the Greek island of Chios after having fled Afghanistan via Turkey. Upon arrival, they were detained in the so-called „Hotspot“ of Vial, an EU-initiated registration facility for asylum seekers converted into a detention centre. There, they had […]

Politics & The World

One year ago, I interviewed a recent Moldovan graduate from the College of Europe, Dinu Codreanu*, to talk about the trend of Moldovans applying for Romanian citizenship. A 2013 study by the Soros Foundation Romania found that between 1991 and the end of 2012, 323,049 applications for Romanian citizenship from Moldova were granted. In 2011 […]

Politics & The World

From Istanbul, reports Sebastian Franzkowiak Fans of Game of Thrones or House of Cards are used to incredible turns and twists in the series’ plots. Violence, intricate power games and cold-blooded calculations are constant features of those shows and shed a negative light on politics. What is going on in Ankara might be increasingly seen […]