NATO’s 2023 summit in Vilnius was dominated by Russia’s war against Ukraine. The summit in Washington, D.C., in July 2024 will be influenced by an additional major conflict in NATO’s neighbourhood: the war in Gaza and the related heightened tensions in the Middle East. These have also...

Germany is being met with rejection from the governments of Arab states when it calls for human rights to be respected. If those being addressed do not outright refuse to engage in dialogue, they usually rely on four patterns of argumentation to ward off corresponding demands: (1) the human...

Across public sectors in the Arab world, international consultancy firms already play a pivotal role and are further expanding their operations. Among other projects, con­sultancies have (co-)designed such high-profile strategies as Saudi Arabia's "Vision 2030" and Morocco’s "Green Agenda"....

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan began his third term in May 2023 with the appointment of Mehmet Şimşek as finance minister and the business executive Hafize Gaye Erkan as governor of the central bank. Both are widely acknowledged and experienced proponents of orthodox economics. The...

Russia plans to significantly step up its military spending once again in 2025. Both the production of weapons and the recruitment of soldiers are becoming increasingly expensive. Over the past two years, strong government demand has triggered a war boom in parts of the Russian economy. Incomes...

The number of digital currencies has increased significantly in recent years. So-called central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), created by central banks, are at the forefront of this development. Combining the advantages of an electronic means of payment - namely the speed and efficiency of...

Bei den Regierungen arabischer Staaten trifft Deutschland auf Ablehnung, wenn es darum wirbt, die Menschenrechte zu achten. Sofern sich die Adressaten nicht voll­ständig dem Dialog verweigern, stützen sie sich zumeist auf vier Argumentationsmuster, um entsprechende Forderungen abzuwehren: (1)...

Internationale Beratungsfirmen spielen im öffentlichen Sektor der arabischen Welt eine bedeutende Rolle, und sie weiten ihre dortige Tätigkeit massiv aus. So haben Consultancies etwa die saudische "Vision 2030" und ein Jahrzehnt zuvor Marokkos "Grüne Agenda" mitentworfen. Aktuell wächst ihr...