Diplomacy

Almost a year after the December 2024 fall of former President Bashar al-Assad, Syrians on October 5 took part in their first parliamentary vote—a symbolic milestone for a nation emerging from years of war and authoritarian rule. Rather than a direct popular election, the process followed an indirect model: about 7,000 members of regional electoral colleges cast ballots to choose two-thirds of the 210 seats in parliament. The remaining one-third will be appointed directly by Preside ...

This policy paper examines digital colonialism as a defining structural challenge of the twenty-first century and argues for the urgent pursuit of digital sovereignty in the Global South. While digitalization holds immense potential to foster inclusion and bridge development gaps, current dynamics reproduce historical patterns of dependency: data is extracted from Southern populations, routed through infrastructures owned by Northern corporations, processed by algorithms trained on ...

L’autrice de cette opinion, Patricia Ahanda, est une alumna du programme Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders 2018. Cette opinion a été publiée initialement sur patriciaahanda.paris Dans un monde marqué par l’émergence d’une instabilité géopolitique globale, par la non-linéarité et l’imprévisibilité croissante des rapports de force, le Maroc s’impose comme un leader pivot du Sud global. Un acteur incontournable capable de relier continents, blocs et cultures dans un mo ...

This Policy Paper analyzes Jacob Zuma’s July 2025 visit to Morocco as a revealing episode in the reconfiguration of South African foreign policy. Far from being mere protocol issue, the event activated multiple registers of mobilization—anti-apartheid legacy, territorial integrity, and diplomatic coherence—while shifting a dossier long confined to elites into the public sphere. Drawing on a corpus of 2,200 posts on X, and 20 South African press articles, the study shows that the con ...

This policy brief analyzes the first 100 days in office of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, which have been marked by an assertive foreign policy, ambitious security reforms, and a shift toward economic pragmatism. Merz has sought to reestablish Germany as a ‘leading middle power’, emphasizing closer European coordination, renewed transatlantic engagement, and unwavering support for Ukraine. However, his approach to the Gaza conflict, characterized by alignment with U.S. positions and rel ...

Ce Policy Paper analyse la visite de Jacob Zuma au Maroc en juillet 2025 comme un épisode révélateur des recompositions de la politique étrangère sud-africaine. Loin d’une simple question de protocole, l’événement a activé des registres de mobilisation multiples — fidélité à l’héritage anti-apartheid, intégrité territoriale, cohérence diplomatique et a déplacé un dossier longtemps confiné aux élites vers l’espace public. À partir d’un corpus de 2 200 publications sur X et de 20 arti ...

In 2019 - well before the onslaught of COVID-19 and the wars in Europe and the Middle East - the central thesis of a policy paper by this author, analyzing the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean, characterized it as one of missed opportunity due to the lack of consistent, meaningful engagement between the two regions - despite the relationship’s special significance given their shared history. Underinvested: The Caribbean African Relationship (PCNS 2019) chronicled the li ...

Dans un contexte international en recomposition, et à l’instar des autres membres permanents du Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies (États-Unis, France, Royaume-Uni), la Chine et la Russie réévaluent leurs positionnements respectifs sur le dossier du Sahara marocain, longtemps relégué à la périphérie de leurs priorités. À travers une lecture croisée des dynamiques historiques, des échanges bilatéraux avec le Maroc et des interactions dans les enceintes multilatérales, notamment à ...

The history of relations between the West and East Asia is deeply rooted in fear, dating back to the 13th century when Mongol hordes swept from Central Asia into the European steppes. This civilizational neurosis took root in the European imagination and has since shaped Western perceptions of the East. The derogatory racial metaphor “Yellow Peril”, which emerged in the late 19th century, was not a new invention but rather a recurring theme invoked whenever politically expedient. It ...