Margaret Thatcher's career showed that making the case for fiscal discipline and market economics is not a guarantee of political success. In the European context, it is not only difficult domestically, but also inevitably leads to hard choices about the future of the integration process.
PRINCETON – Margaret Thatcher was much more respected outside Britain than she was in her own country. In the United States, but also in Central Europe, she is recognized as a hero, especially in the fight for economic and political freedom.
That vision of freedom and dynamism was never really all that popular – or understood – by the British people. In the end, Thatcher’s achievement was also distorted by her own mistakes in dealing with the complex politics of a Europe that was rapidly changing in the aftermath of the collapse of communism.
As Prime Minister, she was widely disliked in Britain, mostly for bad reasons. Throughout her political life, she fought a two-front battle: against socialism, but also against the Establishment. Sometimes the two theaters seemed to merge.
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Rather than seeing themselves as the arbiters of divine precepts, Supreme Court justices after World War II generally understood that constitutional jurisprudence must respond to the realities of the day. Yet today's conservatives have seized on the legacy of one of the few justices who did not.
considers the complicated legacy of a progressive jurist whom conservatives now champion.
In October 2022, Chileans elected a far-left constitutional convention which produced a text so bizarrely radical that nearly two-thirds of voters rejected it. Now Chileans have elected a new Constitutional Council and put a far-right party in the driver’s seat.
blames Chilean President Gabriel Boric for the rapid rise of the authoritarian populist José Antonio Kast.
PRINCETON – Margaret Thatcher was much more respected outside Britain than she was in her own country. In the United States, but also in Central Europe, she is recognized as a hero, especially in the fight for economic and political freedom.
That vision of freedom and dynamism was never really all that popular – or understood – by the British people. In the end, Thatcher’s achievement was also distorted by her own mistakes in dealing with the complex politics of a Europe that was rapidly changing in the aftermath of the collapse of communism.
As Prime Minister, she was widely disliked in Britain, mostly for bad reasons. Throughout her political life, she fought a two-front battle: against socialism, but also against the Establishment. Sometimes the two theaters seemed to merge.
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