Former CC Undergrad Fellow writes analysis on African current affairs

In “When Liberation Parties Govern,” Barnett looks at the recent resignation of South Africa’s Jacob Zuma and Ethiopia’s Hailemariam Desalegn. He notes that these two events, in “two of the continent’s most strategically significant countries,” should cause Western commentators to challenge current U.S. policy. “[These events] can help us understand the evolution of Africa’s liberation parties and the complex interplay between identity politics and economic development in nations that are still struggling to define themselves.”

In “The Continental Congo Crisis,” Barnett explains the history of the crisis on the Congolese-Rwandan border and the current geopolitical factors. He writes, “as seemingly intractable and remote as the DRC’s problems are, the United States has humanitarian, economic, and political interests in managing the multifarious conflicts within Congolese borders.”