By Thiago de Aragao.

Nobody should be surprised at the result of the referendum on autonomy held on Sunday, May 04, in the province of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. The highly anticipated "Yes" victory, to be confirmed by the end of the week when the vote's official results are due to be released, has led to reactions by Bolivia's central government and by the Santa Cruz government too, which did not expect a different result.

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By Alex Bigham. Source: The Guardian's Comment is Free

After meeting on the rugby pitch for their annual match, Fiji's police and army found themselves on opposite sides of a coup d'etat.

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By Richard Gowan. Source: The Globalist

As the United Nations prepares to replace its leader of the past ten years, Ghana's Kofi Annan, with Ban Ki Moon of South Korea, the organisation may be experiencing an eastward shift in more than just the Secretary General's office. As Richard Gowan notes, the UN's peacekeeping focus is already shifting from Africa to the Middle East.

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By Alex Bigham. Source: The Guardian Comment is Free

The United Nations needs to realise that it can't solve all the world's problems. There are better and more effective agencies to do the tasks of peace building and peace keeping.

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By James Royston. Source: Diplo Magazine

The West must recognise the legitimacy of Latin America's new generation of democratically elected leaders, despite their divergent politics.

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By Thiago de Aragao.

Recent events in Brazilian politics are analysed, and potential future scenarios are assessed.

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By Thiago de Aragao.

Recent events in Brazilian politics are analysed, and potential future scenarios are assessed.

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By Thiago de Aragao.

Recent events in Brazilian politics are analysed, and potential future scenarios are assessed.

Download the article (120 kilobyte PDF; need help viewing PDFs?)

By Thiago de Aragao.

Recent events in Brazilian politics are analysed, and potential future scenarios are assessed.

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By Thiago de Aragao.

A review of the past week in Brazilian politics.

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By Thiago de Aragao.

Thiago de Aragao lays out the proposed reforms of nine South American states, and explains their characteristics.

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By Dr Greg Austin. Source: 31 March 2005, The Globalist

Is the United Nations in any shape to face current global security challenges? Or has the gap between the West and the rest become too wide to realistically reflect the demands of a changing international order? Greg Austin and Ken Berry argue that the UN's High Level Panel on Reform falls far short of the full-scale reformation really needed.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has had his High Level Panel on UN Reform. And Jeff Sachs has issued his report on accelerating progress towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

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Source: The Moscow Times, 30 September 2004

As citizens of the Euro-Atlantic community of democracies, we wish to express our sympathy and solidarity with the people of the Russian Federation in their struggle against terrorism. The mass murderers who seized School No. 1 in Beslan committed a heinous act of terrorism for which there can be no rationale or excuse. While other mass murderers have killed children and unarmed civilians, the calculated targeting of so many innocent children at school is an unprecedented act of barbarism that violates the values and norms of our community and which all civilized nations must condemn.

At the same time, we are deeply concerned that these tragic events are being used to further undermine democracy in Russia.

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By Ceren Coskun.

Suits and Uniforms: Turkish Foreign Policy since the Cold War, Philip Robins

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By Phoebe Griffith. Source: March 2004, The Foreign Policy Centre

One of the earliest announcements of the Bush camp's re-election campaign was the introduction of a temporary worker scheme. Although questions about the reality of the promise started to emerge soon after, at the time this transparent attempt to win over the Latino vote was declared a landmark victory for US business and migration activists. But judging from the beam on the face of his Mexican counterpart, President Vicente Fox, Mexico's government seems to have emerged as the biggest winner.

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By Richard Gowan, Phoebe Griffith. Source: Tuesday 13th April 2004

There is a widely held belief among development practitioners that foreign policy makers are out to get them 'in the national interest', argue Richard Gowan and Phoebe Griffith.

The main reason for this is that the political function of aid is deeply resented by aid practitioners. In the ultimate analysis, development is inevitably political: it shapes the capacity and accountability of governments and helps to define the place of recipient and donor states in the international system. This does not mean that we should further politicise aid. It does, however, imply that there is need for a fuller dialogue between the development and foreign policy communities.

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By Michael Edwards.

Nowadays, it is difficult to have a conversation about politics or public policy without mentioning the words "civil society", so one might assume that politicians and policy makers are clear about what they mean when they use these words, and why civil society is so important. Unfortunately clarity and rigor are conspicuous by the absence in the civil society debate…

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By Jack Thurston.

Jack Thurston argues that removing protectionist barriers in agriculture could harm the developing countries its trying to help.

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By Marina Ottaway. Source: The International Herald and Tribune

July 2003

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By Alex de Waal. Source: The Guardian, 16 July 2003

Alex de Waal is programme director for the Commossion for HIV/Aids and governance in Africa, and a director of Justice Africa. A longer version of this essay appears in "Unbinding Africa"

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By Michael Edwards. Source: Published in the Toronto Globe and Mail

Michael Edwards examines the future of NGOs and the anti-globalisation movement in a post September 11 world.

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Source: Global Thinking, The FPC Newsletter

In the wake of the Prime Minister's whistle-stop tour of Africa, we canvassed opinion formers across the continent on what the West should be doing, what Africans should be doing themselves, and what the continent will look like in ten years.

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Source: Event Report

On 11 September, The Foreign Policy Centre held a high-level seminar aiming to set out the key lessons to be learned from Genoa and to re-think the role of NGOs in the global governance structure. Click here to read the full report.

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By Andrew Howard and Phoebe Griffith. Source: Event Report

With the tear gas still hanging in the air over Genoa, the Foreign Policy Centre hosted a timely lecture by Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development. Chaired by Zeinab Badawi, BBC broadcaster and member of the Foreign Policy Centre's advisory council, the lecture tackled a range of issues concerning the role of international development in an increasingly globalised world. Emphasis was placed upon the need for development policies to empower poor countries to help themselves and build sustainable, effective, modern states capable of exploiting the benefits of globalisation.

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By Mark Leonard. Source: New Statesman, 4 September 2000

The third-world poor hold assets worth as much as all the companies listed on the world's main stock exchanges. So why are they poor? Mark Leonard explains.

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By Mike Edwards. Source: Financial Times, 6 June 2000

Mike Edwards argues that NGOs must take account of their critics

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