Democracy & Governance
Retiring the American Empire

Retiring the American Empire

As people near retirement age, they enter the twilight years. Sometimes, they rebel against retirement. They want to keep working. They’re not interested in shuffling out of their office never to return. And if they’re in fact the owner of the workplace, conflicts...

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Making Myanmar Work

Making Myanmar Work

On May 20, 2013, former general Thein Sein became the first Burmese president to visit the White House in almost 50 years. From a pariah state noted for human rights violations under its brutal military regime, Myanmar turned a corner in 2010-2011 with the release of...

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Turkey: Uprising’s Currents Run Deep

Turkey: Uprising’s Currents Run Deep

For the time being, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan—with brutal police tactics that killed four people and injured more than 8,000—appears to have successfully crushed demonstrations aimed at blocking the demolition of Gezi Park in central Istanbul and...

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Egypt: The Deck Reshuffled (Pt. 2)

Egypt: The Deck Reshuffled (Pt. 2)

Read Part 1. While media in the United States has focused on the Egyptian uprising that triggered a military-led coup in which the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) led government was dissolved, hardly any media reports here have considered the regional implications of the...

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How to Be a Rogue Superpower

How to Be a Rogue Superpower

It’s hard even to know how to take it in. I mean, what’s really happening? An employee of a private contractor working for the National Security Agency makes off with unknown numbers of files about America’s developing global security state on a thumb drive and four...

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NSA Spying Leaves Washington Lonelier than Ever

NSA Spying Leaves Washington Lonelier than Ever

As President Barack Obama arrived in Berlin last month to deliver a speech at the Brandenburg gate, many Germans were already expressing concern about revelations of NSA spying. Little did they know that they were viewing the tip of the iceberg and that tensions in...

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Songdo Fallout: Is Green Finance a Red Herring?

Songdo Fallout: Is Green Finance a Red Herring?

From the 29th floor of Songdo, South Korea's jagged "G-Tower," one can glimpse the endless construction sites and vacant parks of an emerging “global business utopia,” to use the city’s adopted slogan. The newly built city, home to the UN's nascent Green Climate Fund...

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Egypt: The Deck Is Reshuffled (Pt. 1)

Egypt: The Deck Is Reshuffled (Pt. 1)

“Do you hear the people sing, singing a song of angry men, it is the music of a people who will not be slaves again.”-- Les Miserables 32 million Egyptians in the streets can’t all be wrong This time the Egyptian people did not wait 41 years to bring down what could...

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