Global Political Insight

Nigel Farage and his party UKIP have a point about the EU. It is a flawed institution and definitely undemocratic. The influential technocrats in the EU’s executive branch, the European Commision, are not directly elected by citizens. The Eurozone relies on the decision-making of unaccountable European Central Bank. Furthermore the EU’s proposed trans-atlantic trade and […]

The European elections results have left the establishment shocked. It was expected that Euro-sceptics would do well, but not many predicted that, in Britain, their success would result in UK Independence Party (UKIP) becoming the party of choice for nearly a third of voters. This is the first time since 1906 that a party other […]

The debate over the European Union suffers from one perennial pitfall – views quickly become contentious when the question is posed of whether collaborative efforts to reform individual countries’ relationship with the EU are advisable, or whether a more hard-line stance needs to be taken. Unfortunately, any suggestions for reform themselves can often be ignored […]

Knowing the vitriol that is generally associated with this topic and having lived with an Armenian and Azerbaijani at the same time, having to act much like a diplomat of the Minsk group all the time, I would like to take this opportunity at the beginning of this article to state one thing. If I […]

After the banking crisis and global recession came to the fore in 2007, analysts and commentators across Europe forecasted that the Euro would collapse, and that this would lead to the gradual collapse of the European Union itself. However, time has told that this is not the case. Despite relative success, the pan-European solidarity is […]

A year is a long time in economics. As 2013 dawned, many were expecting the worst since the financial crisis of 2008 the UK had suffered two recessions and a third was apparently just around the corner, ready to take the country into unchartered territory – the triple dip. Yet the picture began to brighten […]

Hungarian Prime Minister visits London and delivers address to Chatham House think tank but fails to address concerns over rule of law which have dogged his international reputation Mention the names of European political leaders in Brussels right now and few elicit such a negative response as Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister. Since being […]

One could almost be forgiven for not realising that Azerbaijan has just had a presidential election. Yes, the BBC has run an article on it and the news of the vote has made it into Western media, whereas elections in Belarus often fail to do, but it was a brief report in forming readers of […]

A cataclysm occurred on the 14th of May; at least it was an upheaval for two postgraduate students at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES) at the University of Birmingham. Such a momentous occasion called for a morning of coffee at the Starbucks to debate the issue and its connotations for Russia. […]

Six days ago was Catalonia’s ‘national’ independence day, dedicated to the memory of the fall of Barcelona to Philip V during the Spanish war of succession in 1714. The past two years have seen a particular vehement demonstration of Catalan nationalism with 100,000 protesters last year protesting vociferously in the Placa de Catalunya. This year […]

By Hilary Stoten We can all thank Citizens United and SpeechNow.org, the two Supreme Court decisions in 2010 for reopening the doors to overwhelming amounts of unlimited corporate money in US elections. These seminal rulings led to the birth of a new political vehicle in the campaign finance world: super PACs. Super PACs are a fresh […]

The opening years of the Conservative and Liberal Democrats coalition government provided few opportunities for the self-congratulation that comes so naturally to the present generation of Conservative politicians. The economy barely grew, the NHS was left in chaos by Andrew Lansley’s reforms and the coalition government’s promise of a new politics was tainted by repeated […]