In The News

A New Challenge for Bangladesh

Sumit Ganguly March 30, 2006
Preserving democracy in an impoverished Muslim nation is no easy task. After separating from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh created a constitution embracing secularism and democracy. A 1982 military coup suspended the constitution, and Islam was eventually named the state religion. Extremists instigate violence against politicians with a secular platform, thus contributing to the government’s...

We Need Alexander Hamilton

Ernest C. Hollings March 30, 2006
Ernest Hollings, former senator of South Carolina, relies on early American history to compare the government and corporate approaches to trade. The second bill to pass through US Congress, in 1789, was a 50 percent tariff on all trade, which according to Hollings, allowed the US to develop its manufacturing and reduce dependence on Europe. Other presidents managed trade to nurture specific...

Capitalism Under Fire

William Pfaff March 30, 2006
Mass demonstrations in France over a relatively minor change in employment policy reflect a deeper and unrealized anxiety about changes occurring over several generations in the international model of capitalism. A recent international opinion poll reports that 74% of Chinese believe the free-enterprise, free-market system is the outstanding option among economic models, while only 36% of French...

Terrorism and the Message of Carnage

Norman Solomon March 29, 2006
“Fighting terror” has become a rational for the war in Iraq, and author Norman Solomon argues that the US President George Bush views the war on terror as black and white, good versus evil conflict. Without doubt, terrorism is pure evil, but Solomon points out that a terrorist attack doesn’t take place in a vacuum. He identifies the post-9/11 trend in the government and media that neglect...

Bush, India, and Two Degrees of Separation

Siddharth Varadarajan March 29, 2006
Remnants of the old non-proliferation movement continue to haunt the agreement that would allow the US to sell nuclear technology to India, in that the US has not revealed plans to treat India as an equal nuclear partner. The US has multiple goals for such an agreement, including reducing India’s consumption of oil and increasing India’s dependence on the US. Passionate debate in India,...

Shifting Toward the Center

Oscar Arias March 28, 2006
After Bolivia elected Evo Morales as president in December 2005, analysts suggested that Latin America had “tilted left.” But Oscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace laureate, describes Latin American countries as “strikingly moderate,” a distinct change from the 1980s. He notes that Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and even Venezuela are embracing free-trade agreements that...

Democracy Isn’t “Western”

Amartya Sen March 28, 2006
Since the 1993 publication of Samuel Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations,” culture has made deep inroads into the vocabulary of the political scientist. Huntington argues that the post-Cold War world would be shaped by conflicts between “civilizations,” And US foreign policy would be tied inextricably to the preservation of Western civilization. Huntington’s supporters claim the ongoing war...