Elections
2024 Was the Year Voters Punished Governments. 2025 May Be the Year We Find Out Whether the Alternatives Can Govern Better.
The first week of 2025 begins after an extraordinary year of political turnover. Donald Trump is preparing to return to the White House, Labour governs Britain with a huge parliamentary majority, France has lost the…
Jimmy Carter Has Died at 100. His Life Is a Reminder That Losing an Election Does Not Have to Be the End of Political Relevance.
Former US President Jimmy Carter died today at his home in Plains, Georgia, aged 100, making him the longest-lived president in American history. Carter served only one term, from 1977 to 1981, and left office…
South Korea’s President Declared Martial Law. Parliament Defeated It Within Hours. This Is What Institutions Are Supposed to Do.
South Korea has just experienced one of the most extraordinary democratic crises in its modern history. Late on 3 December, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, accusing opposition forces of paralysing government and engaging…
Trump Is Building His Second Administration. The Most Important Difference From 2016 Is That This Time He Knows Which Institutions Resisted Him.
Donald Trump’s transition back to the presidency is moving rapidly, and his first appointments already suggest that the second Trump administration may be structurally different from the first. Trump has selected figures including Marco Rubio…
Donald Trump Has Won Again. This Time, Calling 2016 an Accident Is No Longer Possible.
Donald Trump has won the 2024 United States presidential election, defeating Vice-President Kamala Harris and completing one of the most extraordinary political returns in American history. Four years after losing the presidency to Joe Biden,…
America Votes in Two Days. Whoever Wins, Nearly Half the Country May Believe Something Fundamental Has Gone Wrong.
Americans vote on Tuesday in an election that remains extraordinarily close. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are competing across a small group of battleground states that will determine whether Democrats retain the presidency or Trump…
America Is About to Start Cutting Interest Rates. The Interesting Question Is Whether the Fed Has Actually Pulled Off the Soft Landing.
The United States is approaching one of the most important monetary-policy turning points since the inflation shock began. When the Federal Reserve meets on 17–18 September, financial markets overwhelmingly expect it to cut interest rates…
Venezuela’s Opposition Says It Won the Election. Its Candidate Has Now Fled the Country. That Is the Difference Between Electoral Victory and State Power.
Venezuela’s political crisis has entered a more dangerous phase. On 2 September, a Venezuelan judge issued an arrest warrant for opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, accusing him of conspiracy and other offences connected to…
Germany’s Far Right Has Won a State Election for the First Time Since the Nazi Era. The More Important Question Is Why Economic Improvement Has Not Produced Political Confidence.
Germany has crossed a political threshold that would have seemed almost unthinkable a decade ago. In today’s state election in Thuringia, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, is projected to finish first with roughly…
Venezuela Is Voting Today. The Real Test Is Not Whether Ballots Are Cast, but Whether the Government Would Accept Losing.
Venezuelans are voting today in the most consequential presidential election the country has held in years. President Nicolás Maduro, who has governed since Hugo Chávez’s death in 2013, is seeking another six-year term against Edmundo…
Joe Biden Has Left the Race. The Most Important Question Is Why It Took a Crisis for His Party to Confront the Problem.
Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential election today and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris, ending an extraordinary three-week crisis inside the Democratic Party and pushing the United States into territory no major modern presidential campaign…
France Has Blocked the Far Right From Power. That Does Not Mean the Political Problem Producing the Far Right Has Been Solved.
France’s snap parliamentary election has produced one of the strangest outcomes in recent European politics. After the National Rally finished first in the opening round and appeared capable of winning a parliamentary majority, the second…
