Diplomacy and International Politics

Ownership of reforms by citizens is often presented as important for success. This paper explores media engagement and support for economic reforms in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries using text analysis techniques on publicly available sources. Results show that while reform efforts have intensified in recent years in the GCC, these efforts tend to focus on stronger rather than weaker policy areas, potentially limiting the growth-enhancing effect of reforms. Social media analysis using Twitter shows that the population’s support for reforms has been declining. The analysis of traditional
news media points to more engagement by international than by local media. However, sentiment from international media is less positive about economic reforms in the GCC. Sentiment in international media and social media matters, as evidenced by its positive and strong correlation with FDI inflows into the GCC.

For months, the coronavirus has crawled across the globe. One person at a time, it has passed through millions, reaching every corner of the earth. And it has not only infected people, but every aspect of our human cultures. Policymakers and the public sector face their biggest test in generations—some say ever—as lives and livelihoods hang in a terrible, delicate balance. Facing health crises, economic collapse, social and political disruption, we try to take stock of what the pandemic has done and will do. We asked Harvard Kennedy School faculty, in fields ranging from climate change to international development, from democracy to big power relations, to tell us how this epochal event has changed the world.

The recent ruling of the German Constitutional Court on the ECB was an economic and political bombshell. The deep controversy that resulted – within Germany and on a European scale – illustrates that the ambiguity surrounding the euro area’s legal order and architecture may have reached its limit.

Given the ravages of the coronavirus crisis, the future of Europe cannot be one of permanent division between its northern and southern states.

Nicholas Burns speaks to BBC World about how global politics will change as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

The pandemic will change the world forever. We asked 12 leading global thinkers for their predictions.

In recent years the crisis of the transatlantic relationship and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has become a common theme in media, and various scholars have frequently questioned the futures of both entities. Not only are the new sovereigntist and populist trends within the NATO members calling the relevance of the transatlantic relationship into question, but some have found a reason to identify a crisis in the transatlantic relationship from the rise of global actors and the emergence of China as a great power in particular. China’s economic recovery after its “century of humiliation” is reshaping the international geopolitics and shifting the economic epicenter of the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

As part of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship’s (PETR) event series, Nicholas Burns, Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, moderated a conversation on the crisis in the transatlantic relationship with Ambassador Victoria Nuland, Senior Fellow on the Future of Diplomacy Project and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Ambassador Philippe Etienne, Ambassador of France to the United States and diplomatic adviser to the President of the French Republic. 

Testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment. Testimony by: Amanda Sloat, Robert Bosch Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Former U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered his take on global leaders and hotspots, from Iran and Saudi Arabia to North Korea and Syria. He was joined by Professor Nicholas Burns, Professor James Sebenius and Professor Robert Mnookin.