Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, was reelected in an election marred by repression.
Mohamed Messara / EPA
Tunisia’s president has won a second term in an election marred by repression.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
Photo by Amanuel Sileshi/AFP via Getty Images
The controversy over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reflects historical conflicts rather than a careful analysis of modern challenges.
Electoral agents test a voting machine ahead of the DRC’s 2023 elections.
Patrick Meinhardt/AFP via Getty Images)
Digital technologies can help more people to participate in building their countries’ democracies.
Members of the security forces try to stop protesters during a pro-Palestinian rally near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, in October 2023.
Mohammad Ali / EPA
Jordan’s foreign policy has landed the kingdom in hot water.
The cast of Four Daughters features both real characters and actors.
Four Daughters/Chrysaor
The first Arab woman nominated for two Oscars, Kaouther Ben Hania is a visionary and a feminist.
A protestor before a burning barricade during a clash at Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, June 11, 2013.
Sedat Suna/AAP
Throughout If We Burn, Vincent Bevins shows that “movements that cannot speak for themselves will be spoken for”.
Pro-resistance social media pages share photos of graffiti like this.
Provided by Michaela Grancayova and Aliaksei Kazharski.
From the Arab Spring to the Belarus Awakening and the ongoing Iranian protest Women, Life, Freedom, female-centered imagery and social media are battlegrounds of resistance and oppression.
Tunisian journalists protest in front of the Prime Minister’s office in the capital Tunis on February 16, 2023, in defence of freedom of expression and against the persecution of journalists.
Fethi Belaid/AFP
Freedom of expression was the one remaining gain of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, but it is now severely threatened by a populist president.
Protesters face off with an anti-riot police officer in Nairobi, Kenya, in March 2023.
Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images
Political protests in Kenya have become insular, sectarian, tribal and unashamedly personality driven.
Young people play football on a street in Goma, eastern DRC.
Guerchom Ndebo/AFP via Getty Images
Football provides a way for unpopular elites to build political capital – but also creates space for citizens to voice dissent.
Women have been at the forefront of protests in Iran.
Hawar News Agency via AP via AP
Iranian women have often used images of actions such as singing and dancing unveiled to show what freedom means to them and to protest the Islamic Republic’s gender oppression.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood protest at a rally in 2013.
Carsten Koall/Getty Images
The Muslim Brotherhood once held the reins of power in Egypt. Now it faces internal splits, government repression and dwindling support.
Anger spills over in the streets of Beijing.
REUTERS/Thomas Peter
It started with the deaths of ten people in a locked-down apartment, but is not a widespread demonstration of unrest across CHina.
Demonstrators protest in Tunisia’s capital Tunis in 2021 against President Kais Saied’s steps to tighten his grip on power.
Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images
Tunisia’s democratic backslide demonstrates how autocrats can use constitutional cover to entrench authoritarianism.
A protest in Johannesburg against the lack of service delivery or basic necessities such as access to water and electricity.
Photo by Marco Longari / AFP via Getty images
The country is still a very different political space. It’s a noisy democracy with a free media, lots of dissenting voices, and insulting the government doesn’t carry any overt sanction.
Former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe greets supporters massed at his party headquarters shortly before his ouster in 2017.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images
Leaders typically spread power among their ‘rival allies’ to keep it and co-opt enough of those elites in exchange for political support.
Curioso.Photography/Shutterstock
Extreme weather is already having an influence on global food prices.
Popartic/Shutterstock
The events of the past decade in the Middle East have upended the states in the region. What will the future hold?
In 2014, the Islamic State group could draw crowds of supporters, like these in Mosul, Iraq. But actual fighting recruits have been harder to come by.
AP Photo
A second plot was planned on 9/11, but there were too few terrorists to carry it off. Twenty years later, al-Qaida and its offshoot the Islamic State group still have trouble attracting recruits.
Tunisian president Kais Saied has dismissed the prime minister and taken power.
EPA-EFE/Presidency of Tunisia handout
Viewing Tunisia as an Arab Spring success story was always too simplistic.