The World Today

There has long been a sense of unreality about relations between Turkey and the European Union. While the Turks largely pretended that they would someday enter the Union, the Europeans pretended that they would allow it to happen. Since it was agreed that such a process would require a great deal of time and major changes, both sides were able to avoid the issue.

The assassination attempt last month on Afghan President Hameed Karzai and the car bomb in the capital Kabul have drawn renewed attention to the country’s divisions. A year after the start of the campaign to end Taliban control, armed groups are just waiting for international forces to leave so that factional conflict can resume.

The India-Pakistan crisis has once again highlighted the long shadow that Asia’s rising superpower, China, casts on the subcontinent, especially at times of heightened tension. In fact, Beijing has long been the most important player in the India-Pakistan-China triangular relationship. Since the Sino-Indian border war of 1962, China has aligned itself with Pakistan and made heavy strategic and economic investments there to keep the common enemy, India, off-balance.

By the middle of this month, a transfer of power will have taken place in Indian Kashmir. State assembly elections will see the ruling National Conference sweep back – but the chief minister’s office will pass from Farooq Abdullah to his son, Omar. Amongst the separatists, who reject India’s control, older leaders are also beginning to give way to a younger, and sometimes more pragmatic, set of politicians. Despite limited initiatives from Delhi, and continuing opposition in Pakistan to Kashmir’s status, it is on the cusp of change – generational change.

Brazil needs change, but the political system seems almost designed to frustrate it. Presidents and parliaments reflect different interests – will it be any different this time?

International IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment by David Beetham, Sarah Bracking, Ian Kearton and Stuart Weir Published by Kluwer Law International, 2002, 144 pages