In The News

The Guardian: Demise of the Nation State

Rana Dasgupta April 6, 2018
Nation states are losing influence, contends Rana Dasgupta for the Guardian, and the political systems are obsolete for confronting modern challenges that are either focused and local or global in nature. Systems based on borders struggle to deal with complex companies, technologies, immense wealth and social movements that no longer respect borders. “Exhaustion, hopelessness, the dwindling...

Japan Times: Japan and Fourth Industrial Revolution

Heizo Takenaka April 2, 2018
Big data, artificial intelligence and robotics are revolutionizing business, both increasing efficiency and reducing labor requirements. Japan, the world’s third largest economy, confronts two challenges, slow government response for labor and other reforms and the need for stronger corporate governance, explains Heizo Takenaka, a former fiscal policy minister for the country. Japan also has two...

Straits Times: Mixed Reactions Over Xi’s Expanded Power

Lim Yan Liang February 26, 2018
China’s Parliament plans to remove the term limits for China’s presidency. The rationale is to support reforms and a 30-year modernization plan. State-run media expressed approval for the plan to allow Xi Jinping to serve beyond 10 years while the response was mixed between criticism and support for stability on social media, reports Lim Yan Liang for the Straits Times. China's censors...

New Statesman: The New Age of Great Power Politics

John Bew February 14, 2018
Political scientist Samuel Huntington and others have theorized that elites as beneficiaries of globalization demonstrate less loyalty for nations. Many anticipated great power rivalries to subside after the Cold War, but resentment emerged about global endeavors as revealed by Brexit and Donald Trump’s election: “Two of the nations that had evangelised most about the liberal international order...

RAND Corporation: Truth Decay

Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich February 7, 2018
Too many in US leadership and the general public rely on feelings rather than rational analysis, facts and lessons from history, and such trends explain increasing rejection of contributions to US prosperity by education, science or globlaization. Four trends mark what Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich label as a decay in truth: disagreement over facts and data, blurred boundaries between...

The Atlantic: Saleh's Death in Yemen Sends a Message to Other Dictators

Krishnadev Calamur December 5, 2017
Allegiances change swiftly in the Middle East as a brutal proxy fight escalates between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The death of Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh “at the hands of Houthi rebels who were his allies just a few days ago, shows not only the perils of that balancing act, but also the political shifts in a country wracked by civil war since 2015,” reports Krishnadev Calamur for...

The New Yorker: Egypt Is in Trouble and Not Just from ISIS

Robin Wright November 30, 2017
A terrorist attack in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing more than 300 people, suggests that Islamic State fighters are finding new targets after being driven from Syria and Iraq. Egypt has had more than 1,700 terrorist attacks since 2013. “The mosque attack is the latest of many challenges facing President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, a former field marshal, as Egypt heads toward elections next year,”...