Whether the storming of the US Capitol was an attempted coup, an insurrection, or an assault on democracy is merely a question of semantics. What matters is that the violence was aimed at derailing a legitimate transition of power for the benefit and at the behest of a dangerous madman. President Donald Trump, who has… Read More Nouriel Roubini: The US is now the focus of global instability

There are some positive dimensions to the current situation. While we see democratic declines, including inside the EU, we also see very high levels of protests globally. These are motivated by all kinds of issues, but corruption remains an important factor. For me, what’s important here is that people are recognising and acquiring ownership of their power… Read More What happened to democracy in 2020?

in many relatively free countries we have something close to a corporate-plutocratic-oligarchic stranglehold on the state. This needs to be broken, by democratic means, or else the electoral procedures of democracy will continue to be exploited to subvert liberalism, as populists (sometimes themselves plutocrats) stir up unhappy majorities..    Faced with creeping authoritarianism, liberals need… Read More Timothy Garton Ash: The future of liberalism

Nearly forty years ago, political scientist James Q Wilson and criminologist George Kelling observed that a broken window left unattended in a community signals that no one cares if windows are broken there. The broken window is thereby an invitation to throw more stones and break more windows. The message: do whatever you want here… Read More Robert Reich on America's broken windows