World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The Institute for Economics and Peace publishes an annual report called the Global Peace Index (GPI).  The Institute takes a number of variables it believes are indices of violence or peace, and then ranks countries by how well they score on those attributes.  Sadly, the GPI suggests that the world has become a more violent place over the last five years, something which jibes well with my own sense of world politics.   The Index also measures the cost of containing violence and the Institute found that “…were the world to reduce its expenditure on violence by approximately 50 per cent it could repay the debt of the developing world ($4,076 bn), provide enough money for the European stability mechanism, ($900 bn) and fund the additional amount required to achieve the annual cost of the Millennium Development Goals.”

The failure of the world to intervene in the Syrian civil war has raised all sorts of questions about the “Responsibility to Protect”.  The issue of humanitarian intervention has always been fraught with difficult decisions, most notably the difference between a genuine humanitarian intervention and an intervention for self-interested reasons.  The conflation of these two goals was manifest in the Libyan intervention against Muammar Qaddafi and that experience has made an intervention in Syria more problematic.  The Council on Foreign Relations has a good background essay on the issue of humanitarian intervention.

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has issued a chilling warning to the protesters, stating that “We have not responded to punches with punches. From now on security forces will respond differently.”  It is not clear how the protesters will react to this threat, but Erdogan seems to be unmoved by the international criticism of his handling of the crisis thus far.   In the mean time, Erdogan’s party, the AKP, has announced that it will hold rallies in support of Erdogan this weekend.  Such rallies will likely attract many counter rallies with a subsequent risk of continued violence.