Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Adam Simpson, Senior Lecturer in International Studies in the School of Society and Culture, Adelaide University

Thailand’s prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, will almost certainly stay in the job after a surprise result in last week’s elections saw his conservative Bhumjaithai Party win the most seats in the lower house.

The outcome was another significant setback for the progressive People’s Party – and Thailand’s pro-democracy movement more broadly.

While the People’s Party made some missteps in the campaign, the election demonstrates, yet again, the immense hurdles faced by progressive, democratic parties in a country where pro-military and pro-monarchy forces have outsized influence in politics.

The People’s Party finished second after leading in most pre-election polls. It will now be the primary opposition party in the country.

The formerly powerful Pheu Thai party came a distant third, and agreed to join the Bhumjaithai-led ruling coalition.

So, what does the election mean for the direction of a country? And what’s next for the pro-democracy movement that has attempted for years to bring reforms to the country?

Who is Anutin Charnvirakul?

Anutin took over the Bhumjaithai Party from his father, a former acting premier, in 2014. He had already followed his father into the family construction business, one of Thailand’s biggest.

Anutin came to national prominence as the key backer of legalisation that decriminalised cannabis, although he has since distanced himself from the issue in a bid to appeal to more conservative voters.

Anutin rose to the premiership last year after the previous prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was removed from office for purportedly being too conciliatory towards Cambodia over an ongoing border dispute.

Anutin was elected prime minister in the parliament with the surprise backing of the People’s Party, in exchange for the promise of constitutional reform.

This elevated Anutin’s previously provincial Bhumjaithai Party to be a national-level player. It also allowed him to attract influential defectors from other parties to consolidate his position.

Support for his government dropped in early December due to the mishandling of floods in southern Thailand and alleged connections of his government to transnational scam criminals.

Soon after, Anutin launched preemptive airstrikes against Cambodia over their border dispute. This boosted nationalist sentiment among the public and providing a welcome distraction from domestic pressures.

With the People’s Party looking ready to withdraw support from the ruling coalition, Anutin then dissolved parliament and called early elections.

The airstrikes, drone attacks and ground clashes continued for the next few weeks along the border, ensuring national security would be a key election theme. This worked in favour of the conservatives, but provided challenges for the People’s Party.

Do progressive stand a chance in Thailand?

Many of the People’s Party’s problems are rooted in the struggles of predecessor parties to gain a toehold in Thai politics.

In the last election in 2023, the Move Forward Party won the most seats. But its popular leader was prevented from becoming prime minister by conservative forces in Thai society.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court then dissolved the party. This followed a pattern: its predecessor, the Future Forward party, was dissolved after its strong showing in the 2019 election.

Within 24 hours of the polls closing last week, the National Anti-Corruption Commission unanimously ruled that 44 former lawmakers from the Move Forward party committed gross ethical misconduct by proposing amendments to the Criminal Code’s Section 112. This is the lèse majesté law that carries stiff penalties for insulting or defaming Thailand’s monarchy.

The lawmakers, which include the People’s Party leader, Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, and 14 other newly elected party MPs, could face lifetime bans from politics.

Did support collapse for the People’s Party?

Although Bhumjaithai handily won the election, capturing nearly 200 seats out of 500 in the lower house, the voting data suggest the People’s Party did not haemorrhage support to Bhumjaithai, as various news headlines made it seem.

Under the military-authored 2017 constitution, Thailand’s lower house elections include 400 individual constituency seats elected by first-past-the-post and 100 party list seats elected by proportional representation.

Bhumjaithai did very well in rural and regional constituency seats, where alleged vote-buying and patronage networks are more prevalent.

Some groups across the country have demanded national recounts following reports of electoral irregularities, in addition to the release of vote counts from polling stations and the re-running of some races.

However, the People’s Party leader has acknowledged that even if there were irregularities, they wouldn’t have been substantial enough to change the outcome.

The party’s support in constituency seats was mostly concentrated in cosmopolitan centres with more educated urban voters, such as Bangkok, where it swept all 33 seats. However, it struggled to win seats in rural and regional areas.

In the national party list vote, though, the progressive party emerged clear winners. It earned around 30% of the national vote, compared with only 18% for Bhumjaithai in second place.

This suggests some people split their votes, supporting a Bhumjaithai candidate for their local seat and the People’s Party in the party list. Unfortunately for the People’s Party, the party list MPs only comprise one-fifth of the lower house.

In a small silver lining for progressive forces, a referendum on amending the constitution (held at the same time as the election) passed easily.

But Anutin and the conservatives are now in control of the drafting and approval process, which they could draw out for years. And in their hands, it may not deliver the changes sought by progressives anyway.

Adam Simpson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What Thailand’s election means for the future of the country – and its beleaguered pro-democracy forces – https://theconversation.com/what-thailands-election-means-for-the-future-of-the-country-and-its-beleaguered-pro-democracy-forces-272895

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Dennis B. Desmond, Lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast

As a career counterintelligence officer for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Defense Intelligence Agency, I worked inside a fully integrated intelligence system.

Signals intelligence from the National Security Agency guided investigations. Satellite imagery from the National Reconnaissance Office provided visibility into hostile environments. Human intelligence came through Defense Intelligence Agency channels.

These streams were strengthened by reporting from domestic and foreign partners. It was a closed, tightly controlled system.

But things have changed. Now private companies are supplying “intelligence as a service” to government entities and others – and as the Amazon-owned Ring doorbell camera company found out when it advertised a new feature last week, the change is not without controversy.

The rise of private intelligence

For most of the 20th century, intelligence remained the exclusive domain of nation states. Collection systems were expensive and specialised. They were protected by strict classification rules designed to safeguard sources and methods.

Intelligence agencies controlled the entire life cycle: human spying, signals interception, satellite surveillance, analysis, and dissemination to decision-makers. This created a closed command economy, where states maintained their own capabilities with legal oversight and institutional tradecraft.

Today, that monopoly is eroding. It’s being replaced by a commercial intelligence marketplace operating alongside – and increasingly inside – government security structures.

The shift began in the late 20th century as open-source intelligence became more valuable. This happened with the rise of online forums, social media platforms and commercial satellite imagery.

Companies entered this market, scraping images from the web and content from social media sites. Clearview AI, perhaps the most well known, entered this market in 2017 – offering to identify people based on photos from social media.

Businesses quickly recognised the opportunity. Intelligence could be produced commercially, packaged, and sold.

The surveillance economy

At the same time, a broader surveillance economy emerged. It was driven by private companies, not governments.

Acoustic gunshot detection systems illustrate this convergence. Originally designed for military force protection, these sensors are now deployed across cities, providing real-time alerts to police. In Australia, this has manifested itself with hardware store chain Bunnings incorporating facial recognition technology from Hitachi.

Uncrewed aerial vehicles – better known as drones – have followed a similar pattern. Once limited to military reconnaissance, sensor-equipped drones are now widely available commercially. Parts of the battlefield surveillance grid have migrated into civilian life.

Perhaps the most significant shift comes from everyday consumer technology. Internet-connected door cameras, home security systems, and other “Internet of Things” devices now form a vast, privately owned sensor network. This is likely to grow, as products such as Meta’s planned facial-recognition smart glasses hit the market.

Real intelligence value but real privacy concerns

These systems were never intended as intelligence tools. Yet their intelligence value is undeniable.

In the recent case of the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie in Arizona, for example, Nest door camera footage helped reconstruct movements and identify a possible kidnapper. The data was captured passively, through daily digital life.

This is intelligence collection by proxy. It is constant, ambient, and privately owned.

Amazon Ring’s attempt to launch its “Search Party” program demonstrates the tension.

Framed as a community safety feature, the program proposed using AI to scan neighbourhood camera footage to locate missing pets.

Concern escalated when Ring explored partnering with Flock Safety, whose automated license plate reader networks are widely used by law enforcement. Linking home surveillance cameras with other tracking systems signalled the emergence of a fully integrated commercial intelligence network.

Public backlash was swift – especially after the capability was advertised during the Super Bowl. Critics argued the pet-recovery narrative masked the normalisation of mass surveillance.

Facing mounting privacy concerns, Ring ultimately abandoned the partnership.

Intelligence as a service

Commercial surveillance partnerships continue to expand. Networked cameras and license plate readers equipped with AI-powered object recognition enable vehicle tracking across jurisdictions.

Data brokers feed into this ecosystem too. They sell credit histories, utility records, and behavioural data to government clients.

Taken together, these developments represent “intelligence as a service”. Governments now buy cyber threat reporting, commercial sensor data, facial recognition, and behavioural analytics through subscriptions and data-sharing agreements. Intelligence production has become scalable, modular and market-driven.

This transformation raises serious governance questions. Commercial intelligence providers often operate under far looser legal restrictions. They allow agencies to circumvent data privacy laws.

Consumer-generated data, door cameras, vehicle telemetry and biometric identifiers can often be used by investigators without the need for a warrant. This complicates privacy protections and civil liberties safeguards.

None of this makes state intelligence services obsolete. Governments still retain unique authorities: human espionage, covert action, offensive cyber operations, and classified technical collection.

However, these capabilities now operate within a broader intelligence supply chain. Also in the mix are satellite firms, data brokers, AI analytics companies, and cyber intelligence vendors.

Questions for the future

The integration of commercial surveillance and artificial intelligence is likely to deepen.

Technology leaders envision a near future where cameras on homes, vehicles and public infrastructure feed constant video into AI systems. Citizens and police alike would operate under continuous algorithmic observation. Automated reporting would aim to shape behaviour.

The privatisation of intelligence is neither temporary nor accidental. It is the outcome of technological diffusion, data proliferation, and commercial innovation meeting demand from national security and law enforcement.

The question is not whether intelligence as a service will expand. It will.

The real question is different. What happens to national sovereignty, democratic oversight, and personal privacy when the power to collect and analyse intelligence no longer belongs solely to the state? What happens when it belongs to private actors willing to sell it?

Dennis B. Desmond receives funding from Australian Research Council, Australian Army. As a former intelligence officer, he used various data aggregators, Palantir, and Analyst Notebook for data analysis and intelligence production.

– ref. Amazon’s Ring wanted to track your pets. It revealed the future of surveillance – https://theconversation.com/amazons-ring-wanted-to-track-your-pets-it-revealed-the-future-of-surveillance-276020

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kelsie Boulton, Senior Research Fellow in Child Neurodevelopment, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney

When it comes to autism, few questions spark as much debate as how best to support autistic people with the greatest needs.

This prompted The Lancet medical journal to commission a group of international experts to propose a new category of “profound autism”.

This category describes autistic people who have little or no language (spoken, written, signed or via a communication device), who have an IQ of less than 50, and who require 24-hour supervision and support.

It would only apply to children aged eight and over, when their cognitive and communication abilities are considered more stable.

In our new study, we considered how the category could impact autism assessments. We found 24% of autistic children met, or were at risk of meeting, the criteria for profound autism.

Why the debate?

The category is intended to help governments and service providers plan and deliver supports, so autistic people with the highest needs aren’t overlooked. It also aims to re-balance their under-representation in mainstream autism research.

This new category may be helpful for advocating for a greater level of support, research and evidence for this group.

But some have raised concerns that autistic people who don’t fit into this category could be perceived as less in need and excluded from services and funding supports.

Others argue the category doesn’t sufficiently emphasise autistic people’s strengths and capabilities, and places too much emphasis on the challenges that are experienced.

What did we do?

We conducted the first Australian study to examine how the “profound autism” category might apply to children attending publicly funded diagnostic services for developmental conditions.

Drawing on the Australian Child Neurodevelopment Registry, we examined data from 513 autistic children assessed between 2019 and 2024. We asked:

• how many children met the criteria for profound autism?
• were there behavioural features that set this group apart?

Because we focused on children at the time of diagnosis, most (91%) were aged under eight years. We described these children as being “at risk of profound autism”.

What did we find?

Around 24% of autistic children in our study met, or were at risk of meeting, the criteria for profound autism. This is similar to the proportion of children internationally.

Almost half (49.6%) showed behaviours that were a safety risk, such as attempting to run away from carers, compared with one-third (31.2%) of other autistic children.

These challenges weren’t limited to children who met criteria for profound autism. Around one in five autistic children (22.5%) engaged in self-injury, and more than one-third (38.2%) showed aggression toward others.

So, while the category identified many children with very high needs, other children who didn’t meet these criteria also had significant needs.

Importantly, we found the definition of “profound autism” doesn’t always line up with the official diagnostic levels which determine the level of support and NDIS funding children receive.

In our study, 8% of children at risk of profound autism were classified as level 2, rather than level 3 (the highest level of support). Meanwhile, 17% of children classified as level 3 did not meet criteria for profound autism.

Our concern

We looked at children when they first received an autism diagnosis. Children were aged 18 months to 16 years, with more than 90% under the age of eight years.

This aligns with our earlier research, showing the average age of diagnosis in public settings is 6.6 years.

From a practical perspective, our biggest concern about the profound autism category is the age threshold of eight years.

Because most children are already assessed before age eight, introducing this category into assessment services would mean many families would need repeat assessments, placing additional strain on already stretched developmental services.

Second, modifications will be needed if this criteria is going to be used to inform funding decisions as it didn’t map perfectly onto level 3 support criteria.

On balance, however, our results suggest the profound autism category may provide a clear, measurable way to describe the needs of autistic people with the highest support requirements.

Every autistic child has individual strengths and needs. The term “profound autism” would need to be promoted with inclusive and supportive language, so as to not replace or diminish individual needs, but to help clinicians tailor supports and obtain additional resources when needed.

Including the category in future clinical guidelines, such as the national guideline for the assessment and diagnosis of autism, could help ensure governments, disability services and clinicians plan and deliver supports.

What can you do in the meantime?

If you’re concerned your child requires substantial support, here are some practical steps you can take to ensure their needs are recognised and addressed:

Explain your concerns

Not all clinicians have experience working with children with high support needs. Be as clear as possible about behaviours that affect your child’s safety or daily life, including self-injury, aggression or attempts to run away. These details, while difficult to share, help give a clearer picture of your child’s support needs.

It can also be a challenge to find and access clinicians with appropriate expertise. Another potential benefit of having a defined category is that it can better help families navigate care.

Ask about support for the whole family

Our studies show that many caregivers want more support for themselves but don’t always ask. Talk with clinicians about supports for yourself as well, including respite, or family support groups.

Reach out

Coming together with other carers and families can reduce your own isolation and normalise many of the unique challenges you face. Connecting with like-minded people can provide a supportive, empathetic and empowering community.

Plan for safety

For children with high support needs, prioritise safety planning with your child’s care team. This can include strategies to reduce risks, as well as planning how best to support your child’s interactions with health, education and disability services over time.

---

Read more:
Parents of autistic children are stressed. Here’s what they want you to know

---

Marie Antoinette Hodge is a Clinical Neuropsychologist at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

Kelsie Boulton and Rebecca Sutherland do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. A new diagnosis of ‘profound autism’ is on the cards. Here’s what could change – https://theconversation.com/a-new-diagnosis-of-profound-autism-is-on-the-cards-heres-what-could-change-271930

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Libby (Elizabeth) Sander, MBA Director & Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Bond Business School, Bond University

Since the pandemic, offices around the world have quietly shrunk. Many organisations don’t need as much floor space or as many desks, given many staff now do a mix of hybrid work from home and the office.

But on days when more staff are required to be in, office spaces can feel noticeably busier and noisier. Despite so much focus on getting workers back into offices, there has been far less focus on the impacts of returning to open-plan workspaces.

Now, more research confirms what many suspected: our brains have to work harder in open-plan spaces than in private offices.

What the latest study tested

In a recently published study, researchers at a Spanish university fitted 26 people, aged in their mid-20s to mid-60s, with wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) headsets. EEG testing can measure how hard the brain is working by tracking electrical activity through sensors on the scalp.

Participants completed simulated office tasks, such as monitoring notifications, reading and responding to emails, and memorising and recalling lists of words.

Each participant was monitored while completing the tasks in two different settings: an open-plan workspace with colleagues nearby, and a small enclosed work “pod” with clear glazed panels on one side.

The researchers focused on the frontal regions of the brain, responsible for attention, concentration, and filtering out distractions. They measured different types of brain waves.

As neuroscientist Susan Hillier explains in more detail, different brain waves reveal distinct mental states:

• “gamma” is linked with states or tasks that require more focused concentration
• “beta” is linked with higher anxiety and more active states, with attention often directed externally
• “alpha” is linked with being very relaxed, and passive attention (such as listening quietly but not engaging)
• “theta” is linked with deep relaxation and inward focus
• and “delta” is linked with deep sleep.

The Spanish study found that the same tasks done inside the enclosed pod vs the open-plan workspace produced completely opposite patterns.

It takes effort to filter out distractions

In the work pod, the study found beta waves – associated with active mental processing – dropped significantly over the experiment, as did alpha waves linked to passive attention and overall activity in the frontal brain regions.

This meant people’s brains needed progressively less effort to sustain the same work.

The open-plan office testing showed the reverse.

Gamma waves, linked to complex mental processing, climbed steadily. Theta waves, which track both working memory and mental fatigue, increased. Two key measures also rose significantly: arousal (how alert and activated the brain is) and engagement (how much mental effort is being applied).

In other words, in the open-plan office participants’ brains had to work harder to maintain performance.

Even when we try to ignore distractions, our brain has to expend mental effort to filter them out.

In contrast, the pod eliminated most background noise and visual disruptions, allowing participant’s brains to work more efficiently.

Researchers also found much wider variability in the open office. Some people’s brain activity increased dramatically, while others showed modest changes. This suggests individual differences in how distracting we find open-plan spaces.

With only 26 participants, this was a relatively small study. But its findings echo a significant body of research from the past decade.

What past research has shown

In our 2021 study, my colleagues and I found a significant causal relationship between open-plan office noise and physiological stress. Studying 43 participants in controlled conditions – using heart rate, skin conductivity and AI facial emotion recognition – we found negative mood in open plan offices increased by 25% and physiological stress by 34%.

Another study showed background conversations and noisy environments can degrade cognitive task performance and increase distraction for workers.

And a 2013 analysis of more than 42,000 office workers in the United States, Finland, Canada and Australia found those in open-plan offices were less satisfied with their work environment than those in private offices. This was largely due to increased, uncontrollable noise and lack of privacy.

Just as we now recognise poorly designed chairs cause physical strain, years of research has shown how workspace design can result in cognitive strain.

What to do about it

The ability to focus and concentrate without interruption and distraction is a fundamental requirement for modern knowledge work.

Yet the value of uninterrupted work continues to be undervalued in workplace design.

Creating zones where workers can match their workplace environment to the task is essential.

Responding to having more staff doing hybrid work post-pandemic, LinkedIn redesigned its flagship San Francisco office. LinkedIn halved the number of workstations in open plan areas, instead experimenting with 75 types of work settings, including work areas for quiet focus.

For organisations looking to look after their workers’ brains, there are practical measures to consider. These include setting up different work zones, acoustic treatments and sound-masking technologies, and thoughtfully placed partitions to reduce visual and auditory distractions.

While adding those extra features in may cost more upfront than an open plan office, they can be worth it. Research has shown the significant hidden toll of poor office design on productivity, health and employee retention.

Providing workers with more choice in how much they’re exposed to noise and other interruptions is not a luxury. To get more done, with less strain on our brains, better design at work should be seen as a necessity.

Libby (Elizabeth) Sander has received Industry Connections Grant research funding from the Australian government.

– ref. Why your brain has to work harder in an open-plan office than private offices: study – https://theconversation.com/why-your-brain-has-to-work-harder-in-an-open-plan-office-than-private-offices-study-274946

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Hamid R. Jamali, Professor, School of Information and Communication Studies, Charles Sturt University

Scientific publishing relies on peer review as the mechanism that maintains trust in what we publish. When we read a journal article, we assume experts have rigorously scrutinised it before publication. This crucial system is currently under severe strain.

We conducted a comprehensive study of Australian academic journals and their editors – surveying 139 editors and interviewing 27. The picture is concerning.

Finding qualified peer reviewers has become one of the most significant challenges editors face. When peer review cannot be secured adequately, both the long-term viability of journals and research integrity suffer. The voluntary system underpinning academic trust is breaking down.

The scale of the crisis

More than half of the editors we surveyed (55%) rated finding reviewers as a significant or very significant challenge.

Some described having to send out 30 or more invitations to secure just two reviewers. One called the process “ridiculous”. Another expressed frustration with authors who had recently published in their journal yet “repeatedly refuse to review” for it.

There are also reviewers who say yes and then never do the review, which delays the process further.

The consequences are significant. Some journals now reject manuscripts outright when they cannot find suitable reviewers, despite the work being in scope and potentially valuable.

Publishing articles takes longer and quality research can go unpublished because it cannot be properly peer reviewed. This is a systemic crisis.

Why academics decline review invitations

Peer review remains entirely voluntary. Academics review manuscripts without payment, formal recognition, or acknowledgement in their workload.

Researchers face pressure to increase the quantity, quality and impact of their research. At the same time, universities are actively discouraging the activities that sustain scholarly publishing, with many editors reporting that their universities have removed editorial and peer review roles from workload models entirely.

As a consequence of workload intensification, scholars protect their time more carefully. Post-COVID shifts in work-life balance have also made academics more selective about how they allocate effort. At the same time, submission volumes continue to grow: more papers to review, fewer willing reviewers, besides the fact that not every author is a qualified reviewer.

There is also a lack of reciprocity. Authors who have just published often decline to review. Some editors suggested publishing in a journal should come with an obligation to review for it.

Current strategies fall short

Editors, of course, have developed workarounds. These include using databases to identify reviewers, running reviewer training workshops to mentor emerging scholars, mining reference lists, and relying more heavily on editorial boards.

They also report rejecting more papers at the initial screening stage, before sending them out for peer review, to reduce the number of manuscripts that need reviewing. But this increases the time required of editors.

An emerging concern raised by some editors is the appearance of reviews generated by artificial intelligence (AI). These reviews can be vague, confusing, and fail to improve manuscripts. This worsens the crisis. Peer review is supposed to be conducted by peers after all.

Systemic change is essential

Short-term strategies won’t solve this crisis.

Some proposed solutions include paying reviewers or introducing mandatory review requirements for authors to review an equal number of articles to those they publish. But these are not easy to implement.

Peer review is so integral to the scholarly system that research would grind to a halt without it.

Yet it remains invisible in how universities and research bodies measure success in the current metric-driven culture.

The core of the problem, as one editor put it, is that “the extrinsic or intrinsic benefits are just not as strong as they used to be”. Therefore, it needs to be better recognised and incentivised by universities and other stakeholders by actions such as including it in workload models, highlighting it in promotion criteria and so on.

Why this matters

This crisis affects all of us who rely on published research. It threatens the viability of journals, particularly local or independent journals not owned by big publishers. But fundamentally, it jeopardises the integrity of the scientific record itself.

We have built a publishing system dependent entirely on voluntary labour, especially for local and independent journals. Without significant change – without formal recognition, support, and genuine incentives – the shortage of reviewers will deepen. Publication schedules will suffer. The diversity of publishing outlets will diminish. Trust in peer review will erode.

The solution requires action from multiple stakeholders including universities, funders and research assessment bodies.

Scholarly communities must understand that sustaining peer review is a shared responsibility. The voluntary system underpinning academic trust has been taken for granted too long. It’s time to start properly valuing it.

Edward Luca is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association (JALIA) and a Director of the Aurora Foundation Ltd.

Hamid R. Jamali and Simon Wakeling do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The peer review system is breaking down. Here’s how we can fix it – https://theconversation.com/the-peer-review-system-is-breaking-down-heres-how-we-can-fix-it-275317

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Robyn Eckersley, Redmond Barry Professor of Political Science, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Regulating climate emissions just became more difficult. US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has repealed its own 2009 legal finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health.

Vindicated by a Supreme Court ruling in 2007, and based on scientific evidence, this so-called endangerment finding by the EPA provided the legal warrant for the regulation of greenhouse gases by the federal government. It underpinned the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which regulated emissions from power plants. In his first term, Trump had tried to weaken it but a new version was introduced by the Biden administration.

Without the endangerment finding, and in the absence of new laws passed by both Houses of Congress, the federal government lacks the legal mandate for direct regulation of greenhouse emissions. The science hasn’t changed, but the obligation to act on it has been scrubbed out.

If you imagine the United States as a collection of big greenhouse gas pots with lids, the Trump administration has been lifting the lids off one by one, releasing more emissions by stepping up fossil fuel extraction, production and consumption. This legal finding held down the biggest lid on climate emissions — and Trump has pulled it right off. This will have a structural effect globally.

What is the endangerment finding, and how was it developed?

In 1970, when the US environment movement was at its most influential, Congress passed an important piece of legislation called the Clean Air Act. It empowered the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to declare something a pollutant if it endangered public health. Initially, it was used to regulate pollutants such as smog or coal ash, the byproducts of industry.

During the George W. Bush presidency, the EPA made a ruling that greenhouse gases were also a pollutant within the meaning of the Clean Air Act. This ruling was challenged in 2007 by fossil fuel interests in the case of Massachusetts v EPA, but the court ruled (five judges to four) that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were “air pollutants” that endangered human health and welfare. It directed the EPA to assess their impact on human welfare — allowing the agency to regulate them.

However, the Bush administration did not push the EPA to implement the ruling.

How was the endangerment finding used for climate action?

President Barack Obama promised to act on climate during his election campaign but faced a hostile Senate when he came to power. His efforts to enact an emission trading bill failed.

However, the endangerment finding allowed him to use his executive power to direct the EPA to regulate emissions. In his first term, the EPA issued new vehicle emissions regulations for cars and light trucks, and some power plants and refineries.

In his second term, Obama extended those regulations to all power plants. These moves represented the US’s first significant steps towards emissions reductions. They enhanced Obama’s diplomatic credibility in the negotiations for the Paris Agreement in 2015. This provided a footing for bilateral cooperation with China on clean energy, helping to build diplomatic trust between the world’s two biggest emitters. Their lead negotiators worked together in the final days of the negotiations to get the Paris Agreement over the line.

Why has Trump overturned it?

On February 12, Trump announced the EPA would rescind the legal finding it has relied on for nearly 20 years. Among all the wrecking balls he has swung at efforts to decarbonise the US economy, this is the biggest. He claims the legal finding hurts Americans. The EPA’s director, Trump-appointed Lee Zeldin, called the rule the “holy grail of climate change religion”.

“This determination had no basis in fact — none whatsoever,” Trump told the media on Thursday. “And it had no basis in law. On the contrary, over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the world.”

But without federal action to curb emissions, the impact of climate change will intensify. The US is the “indispensable state” when it comes achieving the goals and principles of the Paris Agreement. Although China’s annual aggregate emissions are much higher than the US’s, the US is the world’s largest historical emitter, which makes it the most causally responsible for the global heating that has already occurred.

Yet the Trump administration regards climate change as a hoax. Trump has withdrawn the US not only from the Paris Agreement but also the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. In short, the US is now actively fanning the flame of global heating.

In a case of history repeating itself, the arguments being made by Zedlin are pretty much the same as those once put forward by the original opponents of the endangerment finding: claiming that the original legislation was supposed to apply only to local pollutants such as smog, but not greenhouse gases, and that the science isn’t clear.

Those arguments don’t stack up, because there is indisputable evidence that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases do indeed harm human health and welfare. The EPA is obliged to regulate harmful pollutants at the specific source.

What’s next?

This move will trigger court cases, which won’t be resolved quickly. Zedlin and Trump will face a crowd of litigants, including environment groups and NGOs. The Trump administration will likely ignore these and steam ahead with its “drill, baby, drill” slogan.

If the lawsuits fail, or Trump ignores them, it will be devastating. There will be no overarching federal legislation directly regulating emissions in the US. What’s more, a new Democrat president committed to climate action will not have this easy lever to regulate greenhouse gases. Instead, they will have to get new climate legislation through an intensely polarised Congress.

However, there are ways forward. Assuming Trump is prepared to leave office after his second term (admittedly, a big if), it is possible a new Democratic administration might have the numbers in Congress to enact new climate legislation. In the meantime, climate action is continuing to ratchet up at the state and city level in many US states.

Robyn Eckersley currently receives funding from the Norwegian Research Council.

– ref. Trump has scrapped the long-standing legal basis for tackling climate emissions – https://theconversation.com/trump-has-scrapped-the-long-standing-legal-basis-for-tackling-climate-emissions-275921

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jo Osborn, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Texas A&M University

In 1532, in the city of Cajamarca, Peru, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and a group of Europeans took the Inca ruler Atahualpa hostage, setting the stage for the fall of the Inca Empire.

Before this fateful attack, Pizarro’s brother, Pedro Pizarro, made a curious observation: other than the Inca himself, the Lord of Chincha was the only person at Cajamarca carried on a litter, a carrying platform.

Why did the Lord of Chincha occupy such a high position in Inca society? In our new study published in PLOS One, we find evidence for a surprising potential source of power and influence: bird poo.

A potent and precious resource

Chincha, in southern Peru, is one of several river valleys along the desert coast fed by Andean highland waters, which have long been key to irrigation agriculture. About 25 kilometres out to sea are the Chincha Islands, with the largest guano deposits in the Pacific.

Seabird guano, or excrement, is a highly potent organic fertiliser. Compared to terrestrial manures such as cow dung, guano contains vastly more nitrogen and phosphorus, which are essential for plant growth.

On the Peruvian coast, the Humboldt/Peru ocean current creates rich fisheries. These fisheries support massive seabird colonies that roost on the rocky offshore islands.

Thanks to the dry, nearly rainless climate, the seabird guano doesn’t wash away, but continues to pile up until many meters tall. This unique environmental combination makes Peruvian guano particularly prized.

Our research combines iconography, historic written accounts, and the stable isotope analysis of archaeological maize (Zea mays) to show Indigenous communities in the Chincha Valley used seabird guano at least 800 years ago to fertilise crops and boost agricultural production.

We suggest guano likely shaped the rise of the Chincha Kingdom and its eventual relationship with the Inca Empire.

Lords of the desert coast

The Chincha Kingdom (1000–1400 CE) was a large-scale society comprising an estimated 100,000 people. It was organised into specialist communities such as fisherfolk, farmers and merchants. This society controlled the Chincha Valley until it was brought into the Inca Empire in the 15th century.

Given the proximity of historically important guano deposits on the Chincha Islands, Peruvian historian Marco Curatola proposed in 1997 that seabird guano was an important source of Chincha’s wealth. We tested this hypothesis and found strong support.

A biochemical test

Biochemical analysis is a reliable way to identify the use of fertilisers in the past. One experimental 2012 study showed plants fertilised with dung from camelids (alpacas and llamas) and seabirds show higher nitrogen isotope values than unfertilised crops.

We analysed 35 maize samples recovered from graves in the Chincha Valley, documented as part of an earlier study on burial practices.

Most of the samples produced higher nitrogen isotope values than expected for unfertilised maize, suggesting some form of fertilisation occurred. About half of the samples had extremely high values. These results are so far only consistent with the use of seabird guano.

This chemical analysis confirms the use of guano on pre-Hispanic crops.

Imagery and written sources

Guano – and the birds that produce it – also held broader significance to the Chincha people.

Our analysis of archaeological artefacts suggests the Chincha people had a profound understanding of the connection between the land, sea and sky. Their use of guano and their relationship with the islands was not just a practical choice; it was deeply embedded in their worldview.

This reverence is reflected in Chincha material culture. Across their textiles, ceramics, architectural friezes and metal objects, we see repeated images of seabirds, fish, waves, and sprouting maize.

These images demonstrate the Chincha understood the entire ecological cycle: seabirds ate fish from the ocean and produced guano, guano fed the maize, and the maize fed the people.

This relationship may even be reflected today through local Peruvian place names. Pisco is derived from a Quechua word for bird, and Lunahuaná might translate to “people of the guano”.

Poo power

As an effective and highly valuable fertiliser, guano also enabled Chincha communities to increase crop yields and expand trade networks, contributing to the economic expansion of the Chincha Kingdom.

We suggest fisherfolk sailed to the Chincha Islands to acquire guano and then provided it to farmers, as well as to seafaring merchants to trade along the coast and into the highlands.

Chincha’s agricultural productivity and growing mercantile influence would have enhanced its strategic importance for the Inca Empire. Around 1400 CE, the Inca incorporated the Chincha after a “peaceful” capitulation, creating one of the few calculated alliances of its kind.

Although the “deal” made between Chincha and Inca remains debated, we suggest seabird guano played a role in these negotiations, as the Inca state was interested in maize but lacked access to marine fertilisers. This may be why the Lord of Chincha was held in such high esteem that he was carried aloft on a litter, as Pedro Pizarro noted.

The Inca came to value this fertiliser so much they imposed access restrictions on the guano islands during the breeding season and forbade the killing of guano birds, on or off the islands, under penalty of death.

Our study expands the known geographic extent of guano fertilisation in the pre-Inca world and strongly supports scholarship that predicted its role in the rise of the Chincha Kingdom. However, there is still much to learn about how widespread it was, and when this practice began.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How bird poo fueled the rise of Peru’s powerful Chincha Kingdom – https://theconversation.com/how-bird-poo-fueled-the-rise-of-perus-powerful-chincha-kingdom-275316

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Mehmet Ozalp, Professor of Islamic Studies, Head of School, The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation, Charles Sturt University

The recent unrest in Iran, with the third mass protests in the past six years, has left the theocratic regime wounded but not out.

Iran is no stranger to such unrest. In 1979, similar circumstances led to the Iranian revolution. However, Iranians soon became disappointed that the revolution did not deliver what they had been promised. So while the ideology of the revolution collapsed, the regime remains in place.

To understand this, we need to go back to the emergence of modern Iran.

---

Read more:
Iran’s long history of revolution, defiance and outside interference – and why its future is so uncertain

---

Democracy or monarchy – whose choice is it?

The recent popular unrest reflects the Iranian people’s desire for self-determination, freedom and progress. The fight for self-determination goes back to the late 19th century and the rise of the Persian Constitutional Revolution.

In 1906, this push succeeded in forcing Qajar Shah to instate a constitution and one of the first parliaments in the Muslim world.

Later, in the turbulent aftermath of the first world war, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi led a military coup establishing modern Iran. He was an authoritarian leader, in keeping with the trend of the 1920s and 30s. At the same time, he also tried to modernise Iran with a series of reforms and developments.

During the second world war, Pahlavi was deposed with the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941. Iran was too important geopolitically – for the war in Russia against the Nazis and Indian Ocean against the Japanese – with a constant and free supply of oil for the British war machine.

This importance did not wane after the war. Now, the Cold War dominated geopolitics and Muslim countries found themselves in the middle of it. Iran and Turkey were key countries where communist Soviet expansion efforts were intensified.

In response, the United States provided both countries with economic and political support in return for their membership in the democratic western block. Turkey and Iran accepted this support and became democratic in 1950 and 1951, respectively.

Later in 1951, Mohammad Mosaddeq’s National Front became the first democratically-elected Iranian government. Mosaddeq was a modern, secular-leaning, progressive leader who was able to gain the broad support of both the secular elite and the Iranian ulama (Islamic scholars).

He was helped by a growing public disdain for Pahlavi monarchy and rising Iranian anger at British exploitation of their oil fields. Iranians were only receiving 20% of the profits.

Mosaddeq made the bold move to address this issue by nationalising the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). This did not work out in his favour, as it attracted British and US economic sanctions, crippling the Iranian economy.

In 1953, once again, Iranian people were denied self-determination. The Mosaddeq government was replaced in a military coup organised by the CIA and British intelligence. The shah was returned to power and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company became BP, British Petroleum, with a 50-50 divide of profits.

This intervention sent the unintended message that a democratically elected government would be toppled if it did not fit with Western interests. This narrative continues to be the dominant discourse of Islamist activists today, in Iran and beyond.

The Islamic Revolution

Between 1953 and 1977, the shah relied heavily on the US in his efforts to modernise the army and Iranian society, and transform the economy through what he called the White Revolution.

But it came at a hefty cost. Wealth was unequally distributed, with a large underclass of peasants migrating to urban centres. The economy could not keep up with the growing population, unplanned urbanisation and lack of an open economy.

Having tasted democracy for a brief period during 1951–53, many Iranians wanted democratic rights and economic progress. This uprising resulted in large-scale political suppression of dissent.

Disillusioned religious scholars, such as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, were alarmed at the top-down imposition of a Western lifestyle, believing Islam was being completely removed from society.

In a 1978 interview with a US news program, Khomeini characterised the shah’s regime as one that deprived Iranians of independence and freedom, stating that “we don’t have the true independence, we are suffering […] we want the liberty of our people.”

---

Read more:
World politics explainer: the Iranian Revolution

---

What revolution promised but could not deliver

Ironically, Iranian protesters say almost the same things about the current regime created by Khomeini: that it is the cause of their suffering and lack of freedoms.

The revolution promised true independence, freedom, a more Islamic social and political order, and greater economic prosperity. The failure to deliver on these promises is at the heart of the popular unrest in Iran today.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution ended Iran’s strategic alignment with the US and the West, leading to decades of political and economic isolation. While the Islamic Republic maintained its ideological stance of “neither East nor West”, sustained Western sanctions gradually pushed Iran closer to Russia and China.

The 45 years of a theocratic regime have been equally or even more oppressive than the shah’s rule. People’s freedoms and rights have regressed significantly. While strict public dress codes for women remain in law and are still enforced — sometimes harshly, as seen in the 2022 protests following the death of Mahsa Amini — compliance has loosened over time, with many women pushing the boundaries in major urban centres.

The most important premise of Islamism – making society more religious through political power – has also failed. Nearly two-thirds of Iranians today were born after the 1979 revolution. Yet, a 2020 GAMAAN survey found state-driven Islamisation has not produced a more religious society. Identification with organised religion appears to have declined, particularly among younger people.

Khomeini and his supporters promised economic prosperity and to end the gap between rich and poor. Today, the Iranian economy is in poor shape, despite the oil revenues that hold it back from the brink of collapse. People are unhappy with high unemployment rates, hyper-inflation and never-ending sanctions. They have little hope for the country’s economic fortunes to turn.

As a result, Iranians have lost hope in the ruling elite’s ability to ensure a brighter future.

Will the theocratic regime collapse any time soon?

So, the main ideology of the revolution has collapsed. What about the regime itself?

For any regime to collapse, including the current one in Iran, four key forces and factors, or a combination of them, have to exert sufficient force: popular mass protests, an army coup, external interventions and division among the ruling elite.

Iran has seen many mass protests in the past 40 years. While these did not bring down the regime, their frequency is increasing.

The November 2019 protests, triggered by a sudden fuel price hike, rapidly spread across the country. The 2022–23 protests, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, evolved into a sustained nationwide movement under the slogan “woman, life, freedom”. Most recently, the 2025–26 protests have been driven primarily by a severe economic downturn.

But protests are not sufficient to cause a collapse of the regime. They are usually met with countrywide internet blackouts and violent crackdowns leading to hundreds of deaths. This happened again in the recent unrest, with the death toll reaching at least 5,000.

International interventions

Iran has been under extensive economic sanctions for decades, yet these have failed to bring about major political change or weaken the Islamic Republic’s hold on power. In the aftermath of the revolution, Iraq — backed politically and materially by United States and its allies — invaded Iran in 1980 in a bid to contain and possibly topple the new regime before it consolidated. After eight years of devastating war, this effort also failed to dislodge the Islamic Republic.

Other countries have launched short military interventions in the past, with the last one by the United States and Israel in June 2025 targeting the army headquarters and nuclear facilities. These did not lead to a regime change.

It seems anything short of a full-scale war or land invasion is unlikely to lead to a regime change in Iran. And we know from the experience in Iraq and Afghanistan that such interventions don’t end well.

Could Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stage a coup? It seems highly unlikely. The IRGC is structurally oriented toward preserving and reshaping the system from within, not overthrowing it. Created as a parallel force to prevent coups, the IRGC is intentionally kept fragmented, bound by layered chains of command, and vertically loyal to the supreme leader, making unified action very difficult.

Then, there is the potential for a leadership struggle within the regime itself. For now, this is not a factor, but it could be soon if the elderly Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dies.

Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini in 1989, is Iran’s longest-serving leader. His power comes from being part of the original revolution, drawing respect within the leadership and supporters in the government.

He is 86 years old and has health issues. When he goes, there will be many vying for the role. Whoever becomes leader is likely to purge those who supported others, leading to political persecution and instability at the top.

It is very hard to predict when and if the current Islamic Republic will collapse. Iran may continue as is, but moderate over time. Such a trajectory is more likely to emerge through greater integration with the international community rather than continued isolation through sanctions.

Hard social, political and economic realities have an uncanny ability to test and smooth ideologies. If the regime stays hardline and unwilling to evolve, change is inevitable, and will probably occur at the least expected moment.

Mehmet Ozalp is the Executive Director of ISRA Academy.

– ref. How Iran’s current unrest can be traced back to the 1979 revolution – https://theconversation.com/how-irans-current-unrest-can-be-traced-back-to-the-1979-revolution-273445

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Justine Poplin, Teaching Associate, Faculty of Education, Southern Cross University

The Chinese Year of the Fire Horse has a new, unexpected mascot: Draco Malfoy.

Associating the Harry Potter antagonist with China’s Year of the Fire Horse might seem odd or whimsical. But it has much to teach us about the complexities of Chinese Mandarin wordplay, online participation and meme-making culture.

A search for Malfoy memes manifest his youthful head floating jubilantly, amid a background of red, gold and black calligraphy.

Meaning in images

In China, Lunar New Year decorations are designed to summon luck, prosperity and protection into the home – and visual puns and homophones are a common feature.

Classic New Year prints often include images of names that sound like phrases for good fortune or prosperity. You will commonly see images of the Zodiac, red lanterns, golden carp, fleshy pink peaches and gold ingots – all symbolising abundance.

Prior to the annual festival, the Chinese character fu 福 (good fortune) is often displayed upside-down on doors and walls in Chinese homes.

This is because the word for “upside-down” (倒, dao) is word play on the word “arrive” (到, dao) in Mandarin. Hanging the fu 福 upside down means “Good fortune has arrived”.

There is other word play, too. Yu 魚 (fish) sounds like the word for surplus, so fish imagery suggests abundance.

During last year’s Year of the Snake wordplay used snake (蛇, shé) and earthly beings/humans (巳, sì) to pair snake imagery with phrases about time, events or letting go.

This Year of the Fire Horse is historically linked with energy, momentum and breakthrough.

In Mandarin, Malfoy 马尔福 (Ma er fu) contains phonetic elements that resonate with words associated with horses (马, ma) and good fortune (福, fu). Hanging Malfoy upside-down on a door or wall extends the same pun, suggesting “good horse fortune has arrived” in your home.

In this way, Malfoy sheds his snake skin from villain to a serendipitous linguistic fit for a year defined by fiery horses and potential prosperity: a modern good luck poster.

Visual remixing

Humour, wordplay and visual remixing are a key feature of Chinese internet culture.

Memes thrive on shared visual references, which can be easily remixed. Malfoy’s titanium white hair and sharp features make him iconic, even in small or edited images.

Another example of homophonic wordplay was during the #MeToo movement.

Facing political sensitivity in China, activists embraced phonetic wordplay to visualise the phrase #MeToo, juxtaposing images of a bowl of rice (米饭, mi fan) with a rabbit (兔子, tuzi). The Chinese meme, Mi Tu (literally rice bunny) is visually coded “cute” on the surface, yet functions with the potency and strategic agility of a Trojan Horse.

The memes became a political statement, to visually disrupt and address sexual abuse or harassment.

The Grass Mud Horse (草泥马, cǎonímǎ) is a mythological alpaca co-created in 2009 as a linguistic and visual protest symbol.

Its name is a homophone for a well known insult, enabling users to express defiance while circumventing censorship. It became a playful yet powerful emblem of resistance to information control, widely circulated through music videos, memes and satirical narratives.

The homophonic wordplay of Draco Malfoy performs a similar cultural function – with celebration that evolves tradition, rather than political protest. Users paste Malfoy’s face onto fire horse emojis, Chinese calligraphy or zodiac themed layouts. Others animate him riding red horses or link his image with auspicious greetings.

Culturally specific memes

Visual culture is culturally specific: meaning cannot be transported across contexts without interpretive friction.

Chinese culture has a long history of playful symbolism. The Malfoy memes fit into that tradition using humour and visual puns to express good wishes. It does not replace sacred rituals or religious practices.

Lunar New Year is not only about preserving tradition. Malfoy as a literary villain may be ironic through a Western lens. However, his image becomes a shared entry point into cross-cultural exchange.

It is about renewing hope for the future, and memes are a clever example of how language shapes visual culture and how traditions evolve.

Visual literacy enables us to unlock the cultural keys embedded within symbols and myths, revealing layers of meaning that might otherwise remain obscured.

Online spaces are where a fictional wizard can temporarily join a centuries-old symbolic system built on flexible wordplay and visual humour for the Year of the Fire Horse.

Justine Poplin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Who is the new face of China’s Year of the Fire Horse? Draco Malfoy, of course – https://theconversation.com/who-is-the-new-face-of-chinas-year-of-the-fire-horse-draco-malfoy-of-course-275443

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Michael Paarlberg, Associate Professor, Political Science, Virginia Commonwealth University

As protest and military action raised the prospect of regime change in Iran and Venezuela, the voices of both countries’ diasporas were heard loud and clear through the media of their host nations.

Venezuelan exiles in the U.S. were, according to the popular narrative, broadly behind President Donald Trump and his plan to “run Venezuela,” as the nickname “MAGAzuelans” suggests. Meanwhile, the Iranian diaspora rallied behind the Prince Reza Pahlavi as he positioned himself as a leader-in-waiting, projecting an image of unified exile support.

Diasporas are often treated by media and policymakers as monolithic blocs — politically unified, ideologically coherent and ready to be mobilized for regime change. But as a scholar of migration and security in Latin America, I know this assumption fundamentally misunderstands how diaspora communities form, evolve and engage politically.

Iranian and Venezuelan émigrés might broadly oppose their current governments — having left them, this is unsurprising. But they are far from unified on what should replace those governments, who should lead or how change should come about.

Migration waves shape politics

Diasporas are not uniform because their constituent populations did not arrive all at once, from the same places or for the same reasons. Each migration wave carries distinct political orientations shaped by the circumstances of departure.

Consider the Turkish diaspora in Europe. It has a reputation for religious conservatism and nationalism favoring the ruling party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — seemingly paradoxical given that most live in liberal democracies and support center-left parties in their host countries.

The explanation lies in history, as diaspora scholar Eva Østergaard-Nielsen has detailed. Turkish migration to Europe came in successive waves, each marginalized by Turkey’s longtime secular establishment that dominated the country’s politics until the rise of Erdoğan in the early 2000s. Religious conservatives fled discrimination, Kurds fled persecution, and later came economic migrants. Erdoğan’s ruling AKP has capitalized on this with active outreach to these established diaspora communities.

Only recently have those fleeing the AKP government itself begun to establish a foothold in the diaspora. In a working paper, Gülcan Sağlam and I found that sentiment toward the Turkish ruling party is not predictable by demographic profile, nor is it counteracted by integration or support for liberal European Union parties. Rather, members of the diaspora’s politics are informed by individual personal beliefs and perceptions of discrimination.

The Turkish experience also speaks to the tendency of diasporas to become politically frozen at the moment of departure from their home countries. The same pattern appears across contexts. For example, El Salvador’s diaspora in the United States, which first left during the 1980s civil war, developed a reputation for being “stuck in the ‘80s” — mentally still fighting battles that had long since ended at home.

This temporal displacement has consequences. Iranian-American sociologist Asef Bayat, writing about the Iranian diaspora, argues that exile opposition to the ruling government back home “suffers from a political disease, positioning itself against the movement it claims to support.”

In other words, diaspora activists may advocate positions that resonate with Western audiences, but find little support among those actually living under authoritarian rule. This lack of accountability to political consequences back home can rankle the constituencies on whose behalf they seek to advocate.

Research on the Venezuelan diaspora reflects similar dynamics. A 2022 study found that Venezuelan exiles hold more extreme anti-Venezuelan government views than those who remained.

The myth of diaspora influence

Yet despite the presumed disconnection of diaspora groups, homeland politicians often devote disproportionate attention to those who have left. The logic is simple: Emigrants send money home — accounting for as much as 25% of gross domestic product in some Central American and Caribbean countries. Politicians assume that this financial power translates into political influence over remittance-receiving relatives.

One party official in El Salvador told me: “If we get one Salvadoran in Washington to support us, that gives us five votes in El Salvador — and it doesn’t even matter if the one in Washington votes.”

My own research tested this assumption using polling and voting data across Latin America and found it to be exaggerated. Remittances and family communication mostly reinforce existing, mutual partisan sympathies rather than swing votes.

But the belief in diaspora influence matters politically. And the diaspora voters can be weaponized by authoritarian leaders.

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, in his successful and plainly unconstitutional 2024 reelection bid, expanded external voting through online balloting, increasing diaspora votes by 87-fold over the previous election.

He then directed all diaspora votes to count in San Salvador, despite more emigrants coming from the eastern departments of San Miguel and La Unión. This helped swamp the remaining opposition parties in the capital.

Diasporas in opposition

What happens when diasporas oppose rather than support authoritarian governments? The scholarship offers sobering lessons.

Diasporas can influence home country politics through several channels: direct voting, financial support for opposition movements, lobbying host governments and transmitting democratic values through what sociologist Peggy Levitt calls “social remittances” — the ideas, practices and norms that flow alongside money transfers.

Other research has found that remittances can undermine dictatorships by helping fund opposition activities.

Yet authoritarian governments have developed sophisticated countermeasures. Research on Arab diaspora activism documents shows how governments deter dissent through transnational repression. Freedom House, the democracy and good governance nongovernmental organization, recorded over 1,200 incidents of “physical transnational repression” against dissidents – including assassinations, abductions, assaults and unlawful deportation – between 2014 and 2024 involving 48 governments.

The Cuban example

The Cuban exile community offers, perhaps, the most studied example of diaspora political mobilization. For decades, the Cuban American lobby shaped — some would say dictated — U.S. Cuba policy.

Yet even this influence is easily overstated. The exiles who fled immediately after the 1959 revolution for political reasons constitute a smaller share of the overall Cuban diaspora than commonly assumed.

Subsequent migration waves included far more working-class economic migrants with different political orientations. By 2014, polls showed 52% of Cuban Americans opposed the U.S. embargo that their lobby had championed. The lobby’s influence waned after founder Jorge Mas Canosa’s death in 1997, and the Elián González affair – a messy international custody battle involving a 6-year-old Cuban boy – further fractured the community.

The limits of exile politics

For Venezuela and Iran, these lessons counsel caution. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled their homeland — the largest displacement crisis in the Western Hemisphere. Meanwhile, Iranian emigration accelerated after the 2022 protests.

Both diasporas contain passionate activists, wealthy donors and would-be leaders positioning themselves for future rule. But passion does not equal unity, and visibility does not equal representation.

The loudest voices on social media — or those amplified by U.S. government officials and media — may represent narrow slices of diverse communities. Certain figures project unified support they do not actually command. There may be a rough consensus on opposing the hated government back home, but far less consensus on what should be done — or how to achieve change.

Nor does diaspora opposition necessarily translate into government vulnerability. Authoritarian states have learned to insulate themselves from diaspora pressure while simultaneously using emigration as a safety valve, turning potential dissidents into remittance-senders – as Cuba did by abolishing exit visas in 2013.

Diasporas can contribute to democratic change through funding, advocacy and the slow work of transmitting democratic values. But ultimately, the path to democratic change in Venezuela, Iran and elsewhere will be determined by those who remain, not those who left. Diasporas can support that struggle; they cannot substitute for it.

Michael Paarlberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Exiled Iranians and Venezuelans may well support regime change – but diasporas don’t always reflect the politics back home – https://theconversation.com/exiled-iranians-and-venezuelans-may-well-support-regime-change-but-diasporas-dont-always-reflect-the-politics-back-home-275112