Governance
Assad Is Gone. Now Syria Faces the Test That Determines Whether a Revolution Becomes a State: Can the Winners Protect the People Associated With the Losers?
Syria’s transition has entered its most dangerous moment since Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus in December. Over the past several days, fighting and sectarian violence have erupted across the country’s Mediterranean coastal region after gunmen associated…
Germany Has Voted. The Centre-Right Won, the Far Right Surged, and the Parties Actually Governing the Country Were Punished.
Germany voted today in an election that may prove more important than an ordinary change of government. Early results put Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU first with roughly 29% of the vote, positioning him to become the…
Donald Trump Is President Again. His First Week Shows That the Central Argument of His Second Term Will Be About How Much a President Can Change Without Congress.
Donald Trump returned to the White House on 20 January and immediately began testing the boundaries of presidential power. Within days, he signed a large wave of executive orders and presidential actions covering immigration, energy,…
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…
Assad Is Gone. Now Syria Has to Avoid the Mistake That Has Destroyed So Many Revolutions: Winning the War and Losing the State.
Two weeks after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government, Syria is beginning the much less dramatic and much more difficult process of determining what replaces it. Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS),…
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…
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…
BRICS Is Getting Bigger. The More Important Question Is Whether More Members Actually Means More Power.
The BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, concluded this week with leaders from an expanded group attempting to present something increasingly visible in international politics: the institutions created after the Second World War no longer reflect…
BRICS Is Getting Bigger. The More Important Question Is Whether More Members Actually Means More Power.
The BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, concluded this week with leaders from an expanded group attempting to present something increasingly visible in international politics: the institutions created after the Second World War no longer reflect…
Israel Has Killed Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah Has Lost Its Leader of 32 Years. The Harder Question Is What Comes After Decapitation.
Israel has killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general since 1992 and one of the most influential political and military figures in the Middle East, in a massive air strike on Hezbollah’s underground headquarters in southern Beirut.
Israel and Hezbollah Spent Eleven Months Trying to Avoid a Full War. They May Now Be Discovering That Limited Escalation Has a Limit.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has entered its most dangerous phase since the Gaza war began. Over the past week, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon in attacks…
