Category: Global Insights
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Bad Theory, Bad Practice: Five Myths that Impede Progress (Mariana Mazzucati, 2021)
Since the 1980s, a mindset of aversion to risk has filled civil servants with the fear of doing anything more than facilitating the private sector. Risktaking is not supposed to be part of their job description. Indeed, we often hear that government does not know how to invest and should never use its resources to…
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Fifty Years of Trade Policy in Indonesia: New World Trade, Old Treatments (Mari Pangestu, 2015)
Indonesia’s trade policy has evolved over the last 50 years. It has been influenced by the country’s level of development and the conflict between openness and protectionism; external developments, such as commodity booms and busts and increased competition; and international commitments, whether multilateral or regional. As a result, trade policy has often been ambivalent and…
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The Fifth Inauguration Speech, Putin, May 7, 2024
Dear citizens of Russia, Ladies and gentlemen, Dear friends, As I stand here, assuming the office of President, I am deeply moved to express my heartfelt gratitude to the citizens of Russia across every corner of our vast land, to the inhabitants of our historic territories who have steadfastly defended the right to stand alongside…
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The Israeli/Palestine Question (Mahmood Mamdani, Part 1, 2020)
In the wake of the Second World War, partition on the basis of ethnic cleansing has been the favored solution to perceived problems of ethnic conflict. South Africa’s one- state response to apartheid was the exception, cutting against the grain of Allied logic in postwar Europe and the partitions of Cyprus, the Indian subcontinent, and…
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The Council on Foreign Relations, the Israel Lobby, and the War on Gaza (Laurence H. Shoup, May 2024)
For many decades, there has been a continuing dialogue about U.S. military, financial, and diplomatic support for Zionist Israel. However, even in the progressive and left media there has been a lack of discussion of the lesser known political and economic forces that have enabled this support. One key, but often ignored, source has been…
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The New Imperialist Structure (Samir Amin, 2019)
Contemporary capitalism is a capitalism of generalized monopolies. What I mean by that is that monopolies no longer form islands (important as they may be) in an ocean of corporations that are not monopolies—and consequently are relatively autonomous—but an integrated system, and consequently now tightly control all productive systems. Small and medium-sized companies, and even…
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Geopolitical Economy: the Discipline of Multipolarity (Radhika Desai, Valdai Club, July 2015)
With growth in China and other emerging economies spreading productive and political power far beyond its original strongholds in the west and Japan, the idea that the world is fast becoming multipolar, if it isn’t already, should be uncontroversial. But it isn’t. The two disciplines that study world affairs in the western world, international relations…
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President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address (1961)
Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, Reverend Clergy, fellow citizens: We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom–symbolizing an end as well as a beginning–signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same…