In The News

League of Nationalists

November 25, 2016
Despite living in a world that shares numerous global challenges, voters increasingly place their trust in a new nationalism. Some are unnerved by lost jobs and blame an increasing number of foreign-born living in their midst. Others long for self-reliance. “All societies draw on nationalism of one sort or another to define relations between the state, the citizen and the outside world,” notes...

Donald Trump and the Coming Test of International Order

Uri Friedman November 21, 2016
Foreign policy experts suggest that Trump may pose a test to the post-WWII international order, led by the United States and shaped by alliances, an open economy and support for liberal institutions. For seven decades, Republican and Democratic administrations argued in favor such an order and assumed that the consequences of collapse would be enormous. Uri Friedman interviews several experts for...

The Age of Pain

William Davies November 15, 2016
Populism arises out of grievances. “At what point do we attribute denunciations to the state of the world, and at what point to the state of the individual making them?” writes William Davies for New Statesman, adding that “the line separating ‘public politics’ from ‘private distress’ is culturally constructed, and not always very clear, even as we seek to police it.” Populist movements offer...

British Icons Cash in on China's Day of Sales Madness

November 14, 2016
The world’s largest online shopping day got off to a strong start in China this November 11, a date with digits that symbolize being single. In a variation on Valentine’s Day, single Chinese shoppers buy themselves gifts. “The ‘anti-Valentine’s Day’ celebration was first known as Bachelors’ Day,” reports People’s Daily Online. “After the initial joke gift- buying day in 1993 at China’s Nanjing...

The World Is Watching America's Election

Frida Ghitis November 8, 2016
The US election had its bizarre moments, and global interest runs high. Citizens of Canada, Mexico and elsewhere sense that their countries have a huge stake in the outcome. Newspapers around the globe detail poll closing times for the 50 states, and small crowds gather around televisions, laptops and smartphones to monitor results. “But watching America is not just a spectator sport -- people...

The Rise and Rise of Fake News

November 7, 2016
News spreads quickly via the internet, and research suggests that increasing numbers of US adults rely on social media for their news. “There are hundreds of fake news websites out there, from those which deliberately imitate real life newspapers, to government propaganda sites, and even those which tread the line between satire and plain misinformation,” reports BBC News. The purpose of some...

In the Art World, Globalism’s New Spin

Holland Cotter November 7, 2016
When the struggling US economy turned to globalization as its saving grace in the 1990s, the art world embraced globalism as a key principle. However, the promise of economic globalization has faded for many, and similarly, globalism fell out of favor among some curators. Globalism is returning to the world of contemporary art in the form of global consciousness, explains Holland Cotter of the...