Lula signalled new winds for Brazilian climate politics in his victory speech after winning the presidential election. In his words: “Brazil is ready to retake its leadership in the fight against the climate crisis, by protecting all its biomass, especially the Amazon rainforest”. During Lula’s first presidential mandate at the beginning of the 2000s, Brazil, and other countries led by progressive leaders across Latin America, expanded mega extractive projects to fund their distributive politics. These projects are responsible for environmental degradation and threats to local people’s health and lives until this day. However, Lula also has also great achievements. Between 2005 and 2012, Brazil registered the lowest illegal deforestation in the Amazon as a result of the implementation of the …

Throughout the recent political turmoil in Downing Street, the civil service has continued to develop policy on artificial intelligence, including by developing its 2021 National AI Strategy through a more detailed policy paper (titled ‘Establishing a pro-innovation approach to regulating AI’) that gives further guidance about the intended approach. This policy paper is of domestic and international importance, as the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak looks to capitalise on the UK’s AI potential at a time when governments worldwide grapple with how to regulate the emerging technology. Notably, the tone of the paper, as introduced by then-ministers Nadine Dorres and Kwasi Kwarteng, emphasises a ‘proportionate, light-touch and forward-looking’ attitude that looks to ‘unleash growth and innovation’ in the field. The framing of an …

In 2015 China launched the Digital Silk Road (DSR hereafter). The DSR is an essential part of the One Belt, One Road (BRI) strategy with significant domestic and foreign policy objectives. China has made enormous investments that have allowed it to achieve rapid technological advancement and economic growth. As of 2021, Chinese firms were three of the world’s largest technology companies by revenue. According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), in 2020 China reported 1.5 million patent applications, 2.5 times more than the second leading country, the United States. The DSR is part of China’s plan to spread its technical and proprietary knowledge by building telecommunications, data, and financial infrastructure in countries participating in the BRI. The Nigerian digital …

One of the most critical questions of modern comparative politics is: who governs? The first thing that would come to mind would be party politicians. However, transformations in several European countries’ governmental arena indicate that partisan presence in office, and, more broadly, the general model of party government, characterised by parties’ centrality in representing the needs and demands of citizens, is in decay. Such a decline owes much to the increased government involvement of technocratic personnel – i.e., ministers with no political affiliation. Indeed, while Italy established itself as the promised land of technocracy, currently led by Mario Draghi and by four technocratic prime ministers in the last two decades, technocratic ministers have also entered the last three partisan governments …

This week, political leaders from countries all over the world are gathering for their annual meeting at the United Nations (UN) in New York. Since its creation and to this day, there have been discussions about reforming the UN. Soon after the UN was founded in 1945, public figures like Albert Einstein called for a much more powerful and democratic UN. Today, leaders such as Ukrainian President Zelensky urge fundamental reforms to strengthen the UN, while NGOs like Democracy Without Borders campaign for making the UN more democratic and representative of citizens. In an international survey in six countries worldwide (Argentina, China, India, Russia, Spain, and the United States), Mathias Koenig-Archibugi (London School of Economics and Political Science), Luis Cabrera …

The Italian right, led by the Brothers of Italy, is likely to be in government after the September 2022 elections. Despite its public statements expressing ‘full support’ for the European integration process, Giovanni Capoccia says that there are good reasons to question the exact nature of this commitment Italy heads right Mario Draghi’s successor after the general election in Italy on 25 September will likely be the leader of the right-wing party Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), Giorgia Meloni. Currently polling at 23–24% of the vote, the party is the largest member of the centre-right coalition. In this coalition, the ‘right’, which includes the League (Lega, currently 13–14% in the polls), dominates the ‘centre’. The alliance is expected to secure a clear majority of seats …