There are five maxims the federal government can follow to regain the public confidence it has lost over the past four decades.
Author: William A. Galston | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Winter2009) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
America’s national security structure is designed to confront the challenges of the last century rather than our own.
Author: John A. Nagl | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Winter2009) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, Military | War | Peace
Tom Vanderbilt on the future of the auto industry (a review of Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability by Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon, Oxford University Press, 304 pp, 2010).
Author: Tom Vanderbilt | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Spring2009) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Environment | Sustainability, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
Wherever there’s a debate over gay marriage, free speech, or even smoking in public places, the arguments John Stuart Mill made in On Liberty are still in the thick of the action.
Author: Christopher Clausen | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Spring2009) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Philosophy, Politics & Public Policy
What is the essential dividing line between human beings around the world? The one between the haves and the have-nots? East and west, rural and urban, secular and religious? Or maybe globalists and nationalists – a split purported to explain Putin, Brexit and the rise of Trump? These divisions are all significant, but none provide a consistent way of understanding differences observed from antiquity to … [ Read more ]
Author: Michele Gelfand | Source: The Guardian (September 17, 2018) | Subjects: Culture, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior
The search is on for graceful strategies for exiting Iraq and Afghanistan. Apart from victory, history suggests, there are none.
Author: David M. Edelstein | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2009) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, Military | War | Peace
When Michael Barone began his career as a political observer, Los Angeles was like Des Moines by the sea and America was transfixed by the Vietnam war and the counterculture. Nobody saw the deeper forces that were beginning to transform the nation.
Author: Michael Barone | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2009) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Immigration, Politics & Public Policy
We need go-go capitalism to afford a generous welfare state, and people won’t support go-go capitalism without a safety net. “Socialists” and Republicans forget different parts of this lesson.
Author: Will Wilkinson | Source: Vox (August 16, 2018) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
What would a sustainable, universally beneficial economy look like? “Like a doughnut,” says Oxford economist Kate Raworth. In an eye-opening talk, she explains how we can move countries out of the hole—where people are falling short on life’s essentials—and create regenerative, distributive economies that work within the planet’s ecological limits.
Author: Kate Raworth | Source: TED (April2018) | Subjects: Audio, Economics | Economy, Environment | Sustainability, Politics & Public Policy
It’s been said that the four most expensive words in the world are: ‘This time it’s different.’
[…]
One of the things that happens in economic good times – a very clear lesson from history which is repeatedly ignored – is that money gets too cheap. Too much credit enters the system and there is too much money looking for investment opportunities. […] it is an iron … [ Read more ]
Author: John Lanchester | Source: London Review of Books (July 5, 2018) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
Conservatism, as Roger Scruton reminds us, was founded during the 18th-century Enlightenment. In France, Britain and the American colonies, Enlightenment thinkers were throwing off monarchic power and seeking to build an order based on reason and consent of the governed. Society is best seen as a social contract, these Enlightenment thinkers said. Free individuals get together and contract with one another to create order.
Conservatives said … [ Read more ]
Author: David Brooks | Source: The New York Times (June 25, 2018) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
A foreign policy expert warns that the troop surge in Iraq, while yielding short-term gains, may endanger Iraqis later on.
Author: Steven Simon | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Summer2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, International, Military | War | Peace
The rapid expansion of relief efforts since the end of the Cold War has produced a surprising result: a series of difficult moral questions about the humanitarian enterprise.
Author: G. Pascal Zachary | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Summer2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, International, Life & Society, Philanthropy, Politics & Public Policy, Sociology | Anthropology
An unassuming Dutch traffic engineer showed that streets without signs can be safer than roads cluttered with arrows, painted lines, and lights. Are we ready to believe him?
Author: Tom Vanderbilt | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Summer2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Environment | Sustainability, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
One things been made clear by the housing crisis: not everyone should own their own home. Renting has its merits.
Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Summer2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
Hard as it may be to believe, you can actually win [political] arguments. Here’s how.
Author: Jesse Singal | Source: The Cut (May 14, 2014) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Communication, Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Politics & Public Policy
A lot of good, honorable Republicans used to believe there was a safe middle ground. […] Now it’s clear that middle ground doesn’t exist. That’s because Donald Trump never stops asking. First, he asked the party to swallow the idea of a narcissistic sexual harasser and a routine liar as its party leader. Then he asked the party to accept his comprehensive ignorance and his … [ Read more ]
Author: David Brooks | Source: The New York Times (December 7, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
In a new book, the writer Alan Jacobs looks at why it’s impossible for people who disagree to hold a civilized conversation.
Author: Emma Green | Source: The Atlantic (October 15, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior
You may be happy to learn that even though they are a political nightmare to pull off, U.S. tax overhauls have happened on a schedule — like clockwork, and the timer happens to go off again next year. Given that history and necessity are about to collide, Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid got curious about what tried-and-true solutions America could implement to make that next … [ Read more ]
Author: T.R. Reid | Source: Knolwedge@Wharton (September 8, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Taxation
The Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie once observed that there are “two Americas” — one at home and one abroad. The first is the America of Hollywood, work-in-progress democracy, civil rights movements and Ellis Island. The second is the America of coups and occupations, military dictators and CIA plots, economic meddling and contempt for foreign cultures. The rest of the world knows both Americas. But as … [ Read more ]
Author: Suzy Hansen | Source: The Washington Post (September 8, 2017) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, International, Politics & Public Policy, Trump