Commentaries

Europe’s Next Move

Bronislaw Geremek Series: Against the Current

2007-01-31

Ever since France and the Netherlands rejected the European Union’s proposed Constitutional Treaty, EU leaders have been busy pointing fingers at each other, or blaming French and Dutch citizens for misunderstanding the question they had been asked. But no amount of finger pointing can obscure the fact that, 50 years after the European Community’s creation, Europe badly needs a new political framework, if not a new project, to shore up its unity.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 13663

Beyond the Gender Gap

Heleen Mees Series: European Economies

2007-01-31

Last Spring, The Economist trumpeted “womanpower” as the driving force for the world economy. But if Europe’s economy is to become more competitive and innovative, it is not enough that women enter the labor market in droves. To reap the full fruits of women’s talents, they must be in more top jobs, too, both in the public and private sector.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 13005

Inequality on the March

J. Bradford DeLong Series: Anatomy of the Global Economy

2007-01-30

How much should we worry about inequality? Answering that question requires that we first answer another question: “Compared to what?” What is the alternative against which to judge the degree of inequality that we see? ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 16594

The War of the Words

George P. Fletcher Series: The Worldly Philosophers

2007-01-30

Nowadays, words are often seen as a source of instability. The violent reactions last year to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper saw a confused Western response, with governments tripping over their tongues trying to explain what the media should and should not be allowed to do in the name of political satire. Then Iran trumped the West by sponsoring a conference of Holocaust deniers, a form of speech punished as criminal almost everywhere in Europe.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 12350

The Politics of Psychiatry

John Z. Sadler Series: Health and Medicine

2007-01-29

Worldwide, annual investments in scientific research to cure devastating mental pathologies such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and clinical depression are huge – comparable to spending on finding a cure for any other disease. But while mental disorders are indeed medical diseases, with their own culprit molecules and aberrant anatomies, they are also different from “physical” diseases in important ways. For no matter how thoroughly “medical” mental illnesses are, they are also thoroughly social. The reasons for this stem from the nature of mental disorders themselves.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 12926

China’s Financial Fetish

Jun Zhang Series: China Stands Up

2007-01-25

With the drum beating for the development of the costal areas of Tianjin near Beijing, the curtain seems to be rising on yet another “financial center” in China. When Shanghai sought a similar role several years ago, bankers and investors around the world wondered whether the aim was really for Shanghai to replace Hong Kong as China’s financial heart. In the current pilot project, Tianjin in China’s north and Shanghai in the south are competing against each other, prompting even more second-guessing.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 12369

Counting Iraqi Casualties

Beth Osborne Daponte Series: Science and Society

2007-01-24

In times of war, accurate figures on the civilian death toll are almost always hard to come by. With few exceptions, demographers and epidemiologists have not applied their expertise to making rigorous, credible estimates of civilian mortality and morbidity. Sometimes, a lack of professional freedom prevents those who may be most familiar with the data – for example, analysts whose livelihoods depend on the government(s) involved in the conflict – from using their expertise for purposes that could be politically damaging.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 12128

Is Iran Next?

Joschka Fischer Series: The Rebel Realist

2007-01-24

Can politics learn from history? Or is it subject to a fatal compulsion to repeat the same mistakes, despite the disastrous lessons of the past? President Bush’s new strategy for Iraq has posed anew this age-old philosophical and historical question.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 14612

Europe’s Uneven Growth Challenge

Melvyn Krauss Series: Transatlantic Perspectives

2007-01-23

A year ago, the euro zone’s most important challenge was anemic economic growth. But 2006 turned out to be a good year for growth in Europe, as surprising strength in exports sparked unexpected increases in domestic demand. Germany, the euro zone’s biggest economy, had a particularly dramatic turnaround, with annual GDP up by 2.7% in 2006, the highest rate since 2000.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 12142

Winning the Peace

Jeffrey D. Sachs Series: Economics and Justice

2007-01-23

Afghanistan’s future hangs in the balance as its weak national government struggles to maintain support and legitimacy in the face of a widening insurgency, warlords, the heroin trade, and a disappointed populace. Across an arc extending from Afghanistan to East Africa, violence now also surges in Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, and beyond, to Sudan’s Darfur region.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 15951

Europe’s Distant Mirror?

Dominique Moisi Series: European Observer

2007-01-22

It is tempting for Europeans to project their own history onto Asia and to view current developments there as a mere repetition, if not an imitation, of what occurred in Europe. In fact, Asians themselves encourage this temptation, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) openly aiming to become increasingly like the European Union.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 12262

Navigating Lebanon’s Political Minefield

Yezid Sayigh Series: The World in Words

2007-01-22

On the face of it, the donor conference of Western and oil-rich Arab nations in Paris this week merely continues the work of two previous multilateral conferences in 2001 and 2002, aimed at helping Lebanon to rebuild its infrastructure after years of civil war and Israeli occupation and to tackle its massive debt. This time, donors will additionally help offset the $3.5 billion in direct and indirect losses caused by last summer’s war between Israel and Hezbollah, and the further rise of debt to $40.6 billion, a staggering 180% of Lebanon’s GDP.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 10260

The Not So United Nations

Richard N. Haass Series: The Statesmen's Debate

2007-01-18

The good news for Ban Ki-moon is that he has become Secretary General of the United Nations at a time when the prospects for conflict between or among the world’s great powers – the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Europe, and India – are remote. The bad news is that the prospects for just about every other sort of conflict are high and the international agenda is both crowded and demanding.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 13904

European Discrimination on Trial

Robert Badinter Series: Human Rights

2007-01-17

What good are Europe’s treaties aimed at ensuring the legal equality of all citizens when entire groups face systematic discrimination? That is the question that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) faces this week as its Grand Chamber, consisting of 17 judges, begins considering an appeal of an initial ruling that rejected claims of discrimination against the Roma by the Czech Republic’s education authorities.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 12497

The Autumn of the Commandante

Nina L. Khrushcheva Series: The World in Words

2007-01-16

The death watch for Fidel Castro is something that only Gabriel Garcia Marquez could get right. His novel Autumn of the Patriarch captures perfectly the moral squalor, political paralysis, and savage ennui that enshrouds a society awaiting the death of a long-term dictator. ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 14145

Investing in the Poor

Robert J. Shiller Series: Finance in the 21st Century

2007-01-15

Most people believe that the world of finance has no concern for the little guy, for all the low- and middle-income people who, after all, contribute little to the bottom line. ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 16040

The Right to Die

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2007-01-15

On December 21, an Italian doctor, Mario Riccio, disconnected a respirator that was keeping Piergiorgio Welby alive. Welby, who suffered from muscular dystrophy and was paralyzed, had battled unsuccessfully in the Italian courts for the right to die. After Riccio gave him a sedative and switched off the respirator, Welby said “thank you” three times to his wife, his friends, and his doctor. Forty-five minutes later, he was dead. ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 14844

Bush’s Old New Plan for Iraq

Joseph S. Nye Series: Of Might and Right

2007-01-12

Last November’s Congressional elections dealt President George W. Bush a sharp rebuff over his Iraq policy. Shortly after the election, the Iraq Study Group offered a bipartisan formula for the gradual withdrawal of United States troops. But Bush rejected this, and persists in speaking of victory in Iraq – though it is unclear what that now means. Perhaps because Iraq will define his legacy, he has proven reluctant to let go at a point when his policy appears to be a disaster.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 13340

Central Asia’s Other Turkmenbashis

F. Stephen Larrabee Series: The Asian Century

2007-01-11

A dictator’s sudden death almost always triggers political instability. But it is doubly dangerous when it poses a risk of region-wide destabilization and a scramble for influence among the world’s greatest military powers – the United States, Russia, and China.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 10945

Latin America’s Next Growth Challenge

Simón Teitel Series: Latin America

2007-01-11

Since 2003, Latin America’s economies have been thriving, with GDP, including estimates for 2006, up by 17% – an average annual growth rate of 4.3% and a 12% increase in per capita GDP. While impressive, this is only the second time in 25 years that Latin America experienced four consecutive years of positive economic growth. Will such good times continue?... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 10196

The False Promise of Financial Liberalization

Dani Rodrik Series: Frontiers of Growth

2007-01-10

Something is amiss in the world of finance. The problem is not another financial meltdown in an emerging market, with the predictable contagion that engulfs neighboring countries. Even the most exposed countries handled the last round of financial shocks, in May and June 2006, relatively comfortably. Instead, the problem this time around is one that relatively calm times have helped reveal: the predicted benefits of financial globalization are nowhere to be seen. ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 20140

Germany, Europe, and Russia

Yuliya Tymoshenko Series: The World in Words

2007-01-09

European unity is indivisible. When one nation is intimidated or ostracized, all are not free. Every aspect of our shared culture, if not the last century of shared suffering, confirms that for us. ... read

Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 12853

The New Middle East Order

Mai Yamani Series: Islam

2007-01-08

Sometime this month, President George W. Bush will – reluctantly – announce a new policy for the United States in Iraq. A new policy is needed not only in order to halt America’s drift into impotence as it tries to prevent Iraq from spiraling into full-scale civil war, but also because the map of power in the Middle East has changed dramatically.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 13912

The $200 Trillion Question

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2007-01-05

Perhaps the most remarkable trend in global macroeconomics over the past two decades has been the stunning drop in the volatility of economic growth. In the United States, for example, quarterly output volatility has fallen by more than half since the mid-1980’s. Obviously, moderation in output movements did not occur everywhere simultaneously. Volatility in Asia began to fall only after the financial crisis of the late 1990’s. In Japan and Latin America, volatility dropped in a meaningful way only in the current decade. But by now, the decline has become nearly universal, with huge implications for global asset markets.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 16255

The Lessons of South Africa

Desmond Tutu Series: Into Africa

2007-01-03

South Africa is now beginning to contemplate the retirement of Thabo Mbeki, its second president since the end of the apartheid era. So this is a particularly opportune moment to look back and assess our achievements, note our failures, and perhaps see what elements in our transition to democracy may be applied elsewhere.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 14939

Will the Dam Break in 2007?

Joseph E. Stiglitz Series: Unconventional Economic Wisdom

2007-01-02

The world survived 2006 without a major economic catastrophe, despite sky-high oil prices and a Middle East spiraling out of control. But the year produced abundant lessons for the global economy, as well as warning signs concerning its future performance.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 27290

Russia’s Progress and Regress

Charles Wolf Series: A Window on Russia

2007-01-02

Fifteen years after the Soviet Union collapsed and split apart, Russia still fits Winston Churchill’s characterization of Stalin’s USSR nearly seven decades ago: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 13521

Victors’ Justice, Iraqi-Style

Shlomo Avineri Series: The World in Words

2007-01-01

Saddam Hussein is dead, but not all Iraqis are celebrating. On the contrary, the way in which the various religious and ethnic groups in Iraq responded to his execution is emblematic of the difficulty of holding Iraq together as a coherent entity.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 11661

WEEKLY SERIES

THOUGHT LEADERS

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

INTERNATIONAL INSIGHT

MIND AND MATTER

SPECIAL SERIES

PROJECT SYNDICATE

COMMENTARIES