Tom Lansford – Political Handbook of the World (2015)

Автор: Tom Lansford
Название книги: Political Handbook of the World (2015)
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Политология и Социология
Страницы: 4908
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

The updated 2015 edition will continue to be the most authoritative source for finding complete facts and analysis on each countrys governmental and political makeup. Compiling in one place more than 200 entries on countries and territories throughout the world, this volume is renowned for its extensive coverage of all major and minor political parties and groups in each political system. It also provides names of key ambassadors and international memberships of each country, plus detailed profiles of more than 30 intergovernmental organizations and UN agencies. And this annual update will aim to include coverage of current events, issues, crises, and controversies from the course of this year.

New and enduring challenges threatened peace, stability, and economic progress throughout the
world in 2014. A bloody civil war raged in South Sudan after an abortive ceasefire in January 2014
failed to stop the conflict between President Salva Kiir and former vice president Riak Machar. By the
time of a March ceasefire, more than 10,000 had been killed and 740,000 displaced. Fighting between
pro-European and pro-Russian factions in Ukraine broke out in February following protests against
President Victor Yanukovych. On February 22 Yanukovych was overthrown in what came to be
known as the “Euromaiden Revolution.” While members of the European Union (EU) recognized the
new, pro-Western government, Russia used the opportunity to support secessionist movements in
Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, including direct military intervention and the eventual annexation of
Crimea. In response, the United States and EU members applied a variety of economic sanctions
against Russia, prompting some analysts to declare the onset of a new Cold War. In May pro-Western
Ukrainian billionaire Petro Poroshenko was elected president of the country.
A series of bloody internal conflicts also challenged regional stability elsewhere in the world. Syria’s
civil war dragged on through its third year. Estimates put the death toll in Syria at more than 191,000,
with more than 3 million refugees and 6.5 million internally displaced persons. UN-brokered peace
conferences in January and February failed to end the war. The conflict continued to destabilize the
region, especially with the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or simply, the Islamic State (IS). ISIS drew fighters and extremists
from across the region and the world to fight in Syria and Iraq. Western intelligence agencies
estimated that ISIS fielded somewhere between 20,000 and 35,000 fighters. An ISIS offensive in Iraq
in the spring of 2014 led to the capture of key cities such as Mosul, and it threatened Baghdad. These
successes and reports of atrocities committed by ISIS prompted the United States and a coalition of
nations to launch airstrikes against the organization in Iraq and Syria, beginning in September.
Increasing unrest in Nigeria culminated in the kidnapping of more than 280 school girls in April by
the extremist group Boko Haram. The violence and instability threatened Nigeria’s economic growth.
Prospects for peace in the Central African Republic did improve in 2014 with the election of
Catherine Samba-Panza as interim president in January and the UN Security Council decision in April
to deploy a peacekeeping force to the region to replace an African Union mission that had been
criticized for its ineffectiveness. In addition, a ceasefire agreement was finalized in July following
mediation efforts by the Republic of the Congo.
The two main rival Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, agreed on the creation of a unity
government in June that reintegrated Gaza and the West Bank under a single authority for the first
time since 2007. However, rising tensions between Israel and the Palestinian Authority exploded in
July and prompted an Israeli offensive in Gaza. The fighting left 2,189 Palestinians dead, including
1,486 civilians, along with 66 Israeli soldiers and 6 civilians.
In April 2014, in the midst of the ISIS offensive and rising violence, Iraqis voted in one of a series of
critical elections across the globe. Although his party won a plurality, two-term prime minister Nouri
al-Maliki was replaced by Haider al-Abadi, after pressure from the United States and domestic groups
within Iraq. Following a disputed election, Ashraf Ghani replaced Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan in June in the first peaceful and democratic transfer of power in modern Afghan history.
Ghani’s election was the result of a compromise, whereby second-place finisher Abdullah Abdullah
was appointed to a newly created position, chief executive or prime minister, in an attempt to create a
unity government. Ghani moved quickly to finalize agreements with the United States and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to allow international troops to remain in Afghanistan to
combat the ongoing Taliban insurgency and to avoid a situation such as the security vacuum created
by the earlier withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Iraq. Also in June Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was
inaugurated as president of Egypt in balloting boycotted by most opposition groups.
Elections held in April and May 2014 in India, the world’s largest democracy, brought the opposition
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power for the first time since 2004, with Narendra Modi as prime
minister. Other areas of Asia faced mounting political instability. In Pakistan, months of political
turmoil during the summer and fall of 2014, combined with the Taliban insurgency, threatened
civilian rule. In Thailand, the civilian government was overthrown by a military coup in May, the
second military takeover in eight years. Pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong challenged
Beijing’s role in the region’s elections in a series of demonstrations that continued through 2014.
An outbreak of Ebola in West Africa overwhelmed the medical infrastructure in Guinea, Sierra
Leone, and Liberia, and it challenged the ability of the international community to respond to
pandemics. The disease, which has no vaccine or effective cure, sickened 13,042 people and killed
more than 4,800, although reports indicate that the death toll was actually much higher. The
international community responded with medical aid and the deployment of both health care workers
and military troops to the region. In addition, significant new funding was directed toward the
development of a vaccine. Concurrently, a number of countries enacted travel restrictions of varying
degree on people from the area. Secondary infections of health care workers in Spain and the United
States created internal debates over the appropriate response to the disease and the effectiveness of
government policies.
Climate change continued to be a major international issue in 2014 as natural disasters highlighted
changing weather patterns around the world. A 2014 report by the Norwegian Refugee Council found
that natural disasters displaced an average of 27 million people each year, three times the number
affected by war or conflict. In January 2014 the United Kingdom recorded record rainfalls that
resulted in widespread flooding, while the United States and Canada faced extreme cold and record
low temperatures over the winter. Altogether, the cold wave affected more than 200 million people in
North America and caused $5 billion in damage. Meanwhile, typhoons in the Pacific killed 449 and
caused $8.3 billion in damage.
Despite a series of economic shocks, including lingering tensions from the Russia–Ukraine crisis, the
global economy continued to expand in 2014. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that
global growth fell to 2.7 percent in the first half of 2014, before rising to 3.5 percent for the rest of
the year. The advanced economies of North America, Western Europe, and Japan were expected to
rise by just 1.8 percent in 2014. GDP grew in the United States by 2.2 percent in 2013, and was
forecast to rise by 2.2 percent again in 2014. Meanwhile, the euro region saw an economic decline of
0.4 percent in 2013, but was expected to grow by 0.8 percent the next year. Also, the United Kingdom
expanded by 1.7 percent in 2013, and then 3.2 percent the following year. Most of the EU countries
that had been forced to seek financial assistance packages from the EU and IMF, including Ireland,
Portugal, and Spain, had exited their respective bailout programs and returned to international credit markets during 2014. Greece was also expected to exit its program by year ’s end, leaving only
Cyprus still dependent on additional funding from the EU and IMF.
Growth eased across Asia, mainly as a result of a slowdown in economic activity in China and Japan.
The region’s economy expanded by an estimated 5.5 percent in 2013. The Chinese economy grew by
an estimated 7.4 percent for 2014, a decline from 7.6 percent in 2013. Japan grew by only 0.8 percent,
down from 1.5 percent in 2013. India continued to expand, with its economy rising by 5.6 percent in
2014. Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean was anticipated to slow to 1.3 percent in 2014, the
slowest since 2009. The economies of the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan grew
by 2.3 percent in 2013 and were to expand at an estimated 2.6 percent in 2014. However, falling oil
prices in 2014 were expected to act as a potential brake on the regional economy. Finally, sub-Saharan
Africa maintained its growth rate, at 5.1 percent for both 2013 and 2014, led by oil-producing states,
including Nigeria whose GDP was forecast to increase by 7 percent in 2014.
The Political Handbook of the World has a long and illustrious history. The first version of the
Handbook appeared in 1928 when the Council on Foreign Relations published A Political Handbook
of the World, edited by Malcolm W. Davis and Walter H. Mallory. A more complete history of the
Handbook is on page 1869. This is the tenth edition of the Handbook to be published by CQ Press, an
imprint of SAGE Publications. The Handbook is also available in an enhanced online edition.
Individual country entries are arranged alphabetically, based on their customary names in English.
Official names are also provided, in both English and the national language or languages. If a country
has related territories, they are treated together at the end of the entry on that country—for example,
Northern Ireland is treated at the end of the entry on the United Kingdom. In the case of politically
divided China and Korea, a discussion of matters pertaining to the nation as a whole is followed by
separate entries on the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, in the first instance, and on the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and on the Republic of Korea (South Korea),
in the second. We have included one territory without a permanent population and government
(Antarctica). We have also included an entry on the Palestinian Authority/Palestinian Liberation
Organization (PA/PLO).
The Handbook covers significant events and national elections through 2014. This information is
incorporated within the regular text wherever possible or in headnotes at the beginning of the country
entries for elections that occurred at the end of the year. Each entry begins with information on a
country’s political status, area, population, major urban centers, languages, currency, and head of
state and chief executive. Demographic and economic information is presented in the section titled
“The Country,” while political background, constitution and government, foreign relations, and
current issues are examined in “Government and Politics.” “Political Parties and Groups” provides an
extensive analysis of formal parties, political groupings, and any antigovernment or illegal
formations. Each entry ends with an overview of the nation’s legislature, a current cabinet list, and a
brief intergovernmental representation section, including a membership list of intergovernmental
organizations for the respective country.
The intergovernmental organizations selected for treatment are presented in a separate alphabetical
sequence based on their official (or, in a few cases, customary) names in English. A list of member
countries of most organizations is printed within each entry. This section is limited to groups that
have membership composed of more than two states, governing bodies that meet with some degree of regularity, and permanent secretariats or other continuing means for implementing collective
decisions.
We gratefully acknowledge the Research Foundation of the State University of New York at
Binghamton for its longtime support of this work and its integral role from 1975 to 2005 in
maintaining the Handbook’s legacy of consistently high editorial standards. We are also thankful for
the continuing assistance from Binghamton University and its Political Science Department. We
would also like to acknowledge the work of the contributing editors, without whom the Handbook
would not be possible. The development of the Handbook is overseen by MTM Publishing and we
wish to express our deepest thanks to Hilary Poole, without whom the project would not be possible.
We also thank Laura Notton, Tracy Buyan, and the staff at SAGE Publications. Finally, Tom Lansford
wishes to thank Gina, Ella, and Kate for their patience and love.