Vol. 27 No. 2 (2026)

This issue brings together three research contributions and two book reviews spanning institutional design, media representation, and diaspora politics. Christopher Ebikebena traces twenty-five years of Nigerian electoral technology, arguing that biometric innovations have displaced rather than resolved fraud, generating a "trust paradox" that culminated in the 2023 IReV crisis. Hasta Aisyah Trida Pramita and Dwi Ardhanariswari Sundrijo apply a postcolonial lens to a German documentary on child jockeys in Sumbawa, showing how visual framing and production context marginalise Indonesian perspectives. Vasili Ioannidis extends hold-up problem theory to EU enlargement, using the North Macedonia–Bulgaria dispute to show how unanimity and multiple decision points incentivise Member States to extract bilateral concessions from candidate states. The issue closes with reviews of a North Korean diplomat's insider testimony and a journalistic account of elite Russian emigration since 2022, both probing how authoritarian systems shape those who serve, flee, or defect from them.