Politics
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…
Modi Went to Moscow in July and Kyiv in August. That Is Not Neutrality. It Is India Trying to Maximise Diplomatic Freedom.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kyiv on 23 August, becoming the first Indian prime minister to visit Ukraine since diplomatic relations were established between the two countries in 1992. The symbolism was unusually strong…
Ukraine Has Invaded Russia. The Immediate Military Gain Matters Less Than What It Reveals About Risk, Surprise and Bargaining Power.
Ukraine’s surprise offensive into Russia’s Kursk region has now become the largest incursion into Russian territory since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, and one of the most politically significant battlefield developments of the…
Sheikh Hasina Has Fallen. Bangladesh’s Harder Test Is Whether Removing an Authoritarian Government Can Produce Better Institutions Rather Than Another Cycle of Political Revenge.
Bangladesh has experienced an extraordinary political rupture in the space of one week. On 5 August, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India after fifteen consecutive years in power, following weeks of student-led…
Sheikh Hasina Looked Politically Unassailable. Then a Student Protest Became a Crisis of the State.
Bangladesh is entering one of the most dangerous moments in its recent political history. What began in July as a student movement against the country’s government-job quota system has expanded into a much broader confrontation…
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…
Labour Has Won a Landslide. That Does Not Mean Britain Suddenly Became a Labour Country.
Britain has just produced one of the largest parliamentary reversals in its modern political history. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won 411 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons in the 4 July general…
France’s Election Has Become a Test of Whether Blocking the Far Right Is Enough to Keep the Political Centre Alive.
France voted today in the first round of a snap parliamentary election that President Emmanuel Macron called after Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) decisively defeated his coalition in the European Parliament elections earlier this…
