In The News

Democracy Will Survive Pandemic: Atlantic

Tom McTague May 14, 2020
With the Covid-19 pandemic democratic and authoritarian governments alike shut down economies and cracked down on public activities. To protect public health, large majorities in democracies acquiesce on surveillance and other controls that were once unthinkable. “Immunity certificates, mass testing, government surveillance, and a volunteer army of contract-tracing officials are no longer the...

Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories and US Campaign: CNN

Stephen Roach May 11, 2020
US presidential candidates have paused campaigns due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The world learned about the deadly disease in early January, and incumbent Donald Trump repeatedly insisted the United States had Covid-19 under control. Months later the United States represents one third of the world’s confirmed cases and more than one quarter of the deaths, outcomes that expose layers of inequality...

Failed State or America Stronger? The Atlantic

Kori Schake May 6, 2020
Analysts question US influence and capabilities, as the Covid-19 exposes corruption, a health system struggling with preventive care and other failures. The United States, with 4 percent of the world’s population, represents about 35 percent of Covid-19 confirmed cases and more than 25 percent deaths. “Our democracy doesn’t produce fast, elegant solutions to problems, and it often fails to...

Governance and Climate Disruption: Mail & Guardian

Sipho Kings May 4, 2020
Climate change is changing communities and their surrounding environment, exacerbating floods, droughts, wildfires, storms and other challenges associated with human interventions. “It has a cruel way of exposing existing failures, which is why good governance is so important in countries preparing for a changing climate,” explains Sipho Kings for the Mail & Guardian. He offers examples: Dams...

Tribes Dream of a United Nagaland: Al Jazeera

April 30, 2020
Borders drawn by British colonialists for Myanmar and India divided indigenous peoples with long histories in the region. Though checkpoints and mountains divide the two nations, Naga tribes still talk about uniting the 3 million people living in India with the 400,000 in north Myanmar, one of that country’s poorest regions. The tribes, more fragmented over the years, also differ over rebel...

Enemies Circling China’s Xi? New Statesman

George Magnus April 24, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic is roiling governments around the globe, even China, despite a propaganda push that maintains China contained the virus with success. After centralizing control, China’s President Xi Jinping can expect to bear responsibility for pandemic-related challenges, including high debt levels, unemployment, an aging population and families hesitant to have more than one child,...

World After Covid-19: The Economist

Kishore Mahbubani April 23, 2020
Kishore Mahbubani, founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, has long observed that the era of Western domination is ending. The Covid-19 pandemic hurries the demise and marks the start of an Asian century. “The crisis highlights the contrast between the competent responses of East Asian governments (notably China, South Korea and Singapore) and the incompetent responses of...