Politics

Soft Power in Nigeria

The U.S. is funding development in restive Northern Nigeria, but soft power isn't blunting anti-American sentiments.

  • Ameto Akpe

Tsarnaev: Dismantle the Gallows

Granting mercy is among humanity’s hardest tasks.

  • Simon Waxman

Under the Cross in China

Christian weddings are on the rise in China, even among non-believers.

  • Xiao-bo Yuan

Walking on Ice to Clean Up Congress

Lessig’s New Hampshire rebellion.

  • Archon Fung

Libertarianism Is Very Strange

Outside the fantasy novels of Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein, libertarianism does not make much anthropological or historical sense. 

  • Claude S. Fischer

Being Jewish in Today’s Germany

Yascha Mounk explores Jewish identity in modern Germany.

  • Lucy McKeon

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What Killed Egyptian Democracy?

The promise of democracy lies in its potential to cultivate political virtue over time. But Egypt’s liberals, unnerved by the policies of the legitimate Muslim Brotherhood government, refused to wait.

  • Mohammad Fadel
with responses from
  • Ellis Goldberg
  • Micheline Ishay
  • Nathan J. Brown
  • Andrew F. March
  • Akbar Ganji
  • Anne Norton

From Democrats to Terrorists

The notion that elimination of the Muslim Brotherhood would produce a liberal democratic order was wishful thinking.

  • Mohammad Fadel

The Syria Dilemma: A Critical Dialogue

On December 2, 2013, the Center for Middle East Studies at University of Denver co-hosted a debate on Syria with Columbia University's Committee on Global Thought. 

  • Boston Review

On Evgeny Morozov

“I hate the word ‘problematizer,’ but it leaps to mind when I think about Evgeny.”

  • Joshua Cohen

Trusting the Poor

Welfare policy breeds distrust, which in turn undermines outcomes. Judith A. Levine offers modest proposals for how we can reach the most disadvantaged among us.  

  • Judith A. Levine

Trench Democracy in Criminal Justice: an Interview with Lauren Abramson

Participatory Innovation in Unlikely Places.

  • Albert W. Dzur

Do Game Changers Matter?

Political science and political reporting.

  • Lynn Vavreck

Obama Got the Law Right and the Politics Wrong

His ACA employer mandate delay was constitutional—why didn’t he say so?

  • Louis Fisher

How De Blasio’s Real Estate Choices Can Save NYC

Cities can make decisions. Cities can set their own priorities. Cities can resist the self-interested categories of those with extraordinary wealth.

  • Michael Gecan

Can Greece’s SYRIZA Change Europe’s Economy?

The biggest threat to Greece’s left-wing coalition is itself.

  • Yanis Varoufakis

Exhuming Equality: The Forensics of Human Rights

All around the world, we are digging up the dead.

  • Adam Rosenblatt

Europe’s Deadly Border

Migrants are dying as they cross the Mediterranean. Is there a better way?

  • David Bacon

What Are Radicals Good For?

An interview with George Scialabba on utopia, the hive mind, reviewers, and intellectuals.

  • Lindsey Gilbert
  • George Scialabba

Illiberal Reform

Why Did Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Fail?

  • Lisa Blaydes

Letter from Israel: Leftists on Zionism’s Past, Present, and Future

While “left” in the West is now a virtual synonym for anti-Zionism, the same is far from true in Israel.

  • Susie Linfield

Crying Wolf: Democracies in Crisis

An interview with David Runciman

  • David Runciman

Trench Democracy in Schools: an Interview with Principal Donnan Stoicovy

Participatory Innovation in Unlikely Places

  • Albert W. Dzur

The Supreme Court’s Docket Addresses the Washington Gridlock

The framers of the Constitution did not anticipate political parties.

  • Pamela S. Karlan
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