Before the balkanization of the African continent into arbitrary pieces, it was one vast space made up of different cultures and identities. The Berlin Conference of 1884 – 1885 resulted in random demarcations being drawn across the continent to appease the European countries’ colonial interests. The arbitrary lines of yesteryears currently serve as the borders […]

Abstract In this article, the core events that allowed the “truce” in El Salvador are described and briefly explained. There are three stages in this process: “pre-truce”, “truce” and “post-truce”. The stage of “truce” began in March 2012 with the government’s decision of moving thirty gang leaders to lower security level prisons. The “truce” process […]

Dr. Noora Lori is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University. Her research broadly focuses on the political economy of migration, the development of security institutions and international migration control, and the establishment and growth of national identity systems. She is particularly interested in the study of temporary worker programs and racial hierarchies […]

International media and human rights groups place much focus on Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank and its accompanied detrimental effects. However, outside the confines of this well-reported conflict is the lesser-known and lesser-regarded condition of Israel’s own Arab population.  While Israeli Arabs are offered equal citizenship, freedoms, and voting rights as Israeli Jewish […]

BY MATTHEW FLUG After being stoked for years by British politicians, “Euroskepticism” has finally had its moment. Voters in the UK have decided to depart from the European Union (EU) after an once-in-a-lifetime ballot on the Referendum of the United Kingdom Membership of the European Union. This news has reverberated around the world and left in its wake […]

BY DIANA PARK On 6 January 2016, North Korean state media broadcast that it was now “a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate [a] self-reliant A-bomb [atomic weapon] and H-bomb [hydrogen, or thermonuclear, weapon] to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation.”[i] Even though initial seismic readings from US intelligence agencies […]

Dr. Houchang Chehabi, PhD, is a leading expert in Iranian studies at The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University where he is Professor of International Relations and History. Houchang Chehabi has taught at Harvard and has been a visiting professor at the University of St. Andrews, UCLA, and the Universidad Argentina […]

BY MERISSA KHURMA, PANGYRUS This article is being published in collaboration with Pangyrus. A Jordanian woman in the Northeastern city of Mafraq had been nagging her husband for weeks to take her to the Za’atari refugee camp. Her request was a simple one, Magdoos, baby eggplants stuffed with walnuts and sun-dried red peppers and pickled […]

BY ROBERT REYNOLDS Nudging—the application of behavioral insights to public policy interventions—is among today’s fastest growing public policy fields. In the last few years, organizations from the White House to Google to the World Bank have launched behavioral science teams tasked with running randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that identify powerful nudges. During this time, Kennedy […]

Fallujah, located 40 miles west of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, has long been known as the “city of mosques.” But since its capture by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Shia militias fighting to take the predominantly Sunni city have bestowed other epithets on Fallujah. One militia leader compared it to a “tumor” […]

Death of Hezbollah’s Military Commander Signifies a Disturbing Trend for the Shiite militia May 2016 came in with a bang; this time, the leadership of the Shiite militia Hezbollah is at the receiving end.  The cousin and brother-in-law of the late terror mastermind Imad Mougniyah and head of military operations for Hezbollah, Mustafa Badreddine, was […]

According to CNN Money, in 2014, 64,000 residents left Puerto Rico. That’s more than double the rate in 2010, according to the Pew Research Center. Puerto Ricans are heading to Texas or Florida to find jobs because the island is on the verge of fiscal default unless the US government intervenes. Until issues are resolved […]