Politics

Real Americans

Repeatedly in U.S. history, liberalism and populism have defined themselves by rhetorical rejection of the other.

  • William Hogeland

State of the Nation: Elections Foretold

  • Stephen Ansolabehere

Democracy after Citizens United

The framers intended Congress to be “dependent upon the People alone,” but the private funding of public campaigns has bred within Congress a conflicting dependency.

  • Lawrence Lessig
with responses from
  • Will Wilkinson
  • Marvin Ammori
  • David Donnelly
  • David N. Bossie
  • Allison R. Hayward
  • John Bonifaz & Jeffrey Clements
  • Representative Donna F. Edwards
  • Ciara Torres-Spelliscy
  • Nancy L. Rosenblum

Sharing Liberally

The main argument of Cognitive Surplus rests on a striking analogy. 

  • Evgeny Morozov

Mind the Gap

Are the harms of economic inequality primary psychological?

  • Claude S. Fischer

Before History

Harry Clifton's Secular Eden.

  • Alissa Valles

Sign up for our newsletter

Early and Often

How accurate are voter registration lists?

  • Stephen Ansolabehere
  • Eitan Hersh

State of the Nation: A Divisive Agenda

As the final House vote on health care confirmed, Congress is starkly polarized over President Obama’s agenda. A poll shows similar divisions among the rest of us.

  • Stephen Ansolabehere

White Supremacy Has Always Been Mainstream

Contemporary gun violence is not so much terrorism as tradition. It is deeply intertwined with the white supremacist foundations of the United States.

  • Boston Review

Dreaming of a Free Iran

Akbar Ganji accepts the Friedman Prize.

  • Akbar Ganji
  • Hamid Dabashi

Big Pharma, Bad Medicine

Conflicts of interest undermine the goals of medical care and harm the public.

  • Marcia Angell
with responses from
  • Adriane Fugh-Berman
  • David Korn
  • Howard Brody
  • Dan W. Brock
  • Frank Britt & Marissa Seligman
  • Emma D’Arcy
  • Suzanne Gordon
  • David Bollier

Ending the Endless War

Will Colombia’s democracy survive the violence?

  • Luis Fernando Medina

Man of Principle

The Passions of Arthur Koestler.

  • Roger Boylan

Kingpin

On Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet.

  • Alan A. Stone

The Obligation to Prosecute

Why we must prosecute the Bush administration officials who sanctioned torture.

  • Elaine Scarry

The Rules

The market should deliver public benefits, and government can help ensure that the bounties of capitalism actually are shared for the good of wider society.

  • Eliot Spitzer
with responses from
  • Dean Baker
  • Sarah Binder & Andrew Gelman & John Sides
  • Robert Johnson

State of the Nation: What happened in Massachusetts

Scott Brown’s victory over Martha Coakley sent shock waves through the electoral landscape.

  • Stephen Ansolabehere
  • Charles Stewart III

Past Forward

Coping with post–Cold War Romania.

  • Paul Hockenos

Remembering Haiti

In the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake, an anthropologist reflects on his fieldwork in Haiti fifty years earlier.

  • Sidney W. Mintz

Sins of the Father

Alan Stone reviews Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon.

  • Alan A. Stone

Obama’s Chicago Tactics

The Chicago way of doing politics.

  • Michael Gecan

The State of Boston

A mayoral election special.

  • Stephen Ansolabehere

The Jewish Question

Alan Stone reviews the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man.

  • Alan A. Stone

Nothing To Fear

Misreading Muslim immigration in Europe.

  • John R. Bowen
trending_flat
Get our newsletter

Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox

A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975

Registered 501(c)(3) organization

Help Us Stay Paywall-Free

Donate

Become a Member

Subscribe