Policymakers, like all of us, are slaves to fashion

The most widely held theory of politics is also the simplest: the powerful get what they want. Financial regulation is driven by the interests of banks, health policy by the interests of insurance companies, and tax policy by the interests of the [ … ]

The issue is not just that there are five or six major powers now; it is also that they want a free ride

The annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have provided a window onto two fundamental trends driving global politics and the world economy. Geopolitics is [ … ]

While many governments have updated their water policies, they have been less effective at putting them into practice

Dirty water and poor sanitation sicken and kill tens of thousands of people each year in Sub-Saharan Africa, and imposes a heavy economic cost on countries equal to 1.4 percent of [ … ]

States have the greatest capabilities, but non-state actors are more likely to initiate a catastrophic attack

Two years ago, a piece of faulty computer code infected Iran’s nuclear program and destroyed many of the centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Some observers declared this apparent sabotage t [ … ]