GIS Feature

Starting as an uprising by a marginalized ethnic group during the Arab Spring in 2011, the conflict in Yemen quickly gained momentum, becoming a civil war and later a proxy war between two of the region’s titans. The conflict is now a key element in the wider struggle for hegemony ...

Libya has been a test case for the European Union’s ability to intervene effectively in its neighborhood. Yet eight years after the fall of dictator Muammar Qaddafi, the country is still torn by civil war and virtually ungovernable, while refugees and migrants continue to flow north. With the key EU ...

Unconventional monetary policies saved many financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe after the financial crisis. However, near-zero to negative interest rates and central banks’ massive debt-purchasing programs, which pumped trillions of dollars and euros into economies, failed to restore growth and have had potent, negative and lasting side-effects. Relaxing ...

For years, the U.S.-China rivalry has been the main driver of geopolitical developments. When President Donald Trump entered office, the countries’ trade relationship became the central focus of that competition. His aggressive moves to implement tariffs have made geopolitical waves, but also opened up some opportunities. This Dossier reviews GIS ...

Long before Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to step down in April 2019, it was clear that the crony oligarchy he fronted for – known to ordinary Algerians as “the system” – could not last. If the wheelchair-bound leader looked moribund after a series of strokes, so did the country's ...

Mozambique seemed to have it all. Its economy took off after a long and bloody civil war ended in 1992, accelerating further after discoveries of vast natural gas and oil reserves in 2010-2012 prompted the government to liberalize the energy sector. Yet the country’s rags-to-riches scenario has yet to materialize, ...

Political elites around the world are calling for higher taxes, as well as more centralized, unified systems to ensure as much as possible is collected. Yet populations are increasingly raising the alarm about overly complex or onerous taxes. For years, GIS experts have explained why moves toward higher tax burdens ...

Corruption can be a catalyst for political change, as in Latin America, or the basis of a rent-seeking regime, as in Russia. But in rare instances, it can also affect the ebb and flow of global geopolitics. This is clearly evident on the rim of the former Soviet Union, where ...