Politics Archives - Page 86 of 112

How Poland Ruined its 1989

A liberal democratic dream too good to be true

October 24, 2019 • by Irena Grudzińska-Gross

The first half of 1989 in Poland was amazing -- delivering early and decisive blows to the Berlin wall, which fell later that year. From February to April 4th, the representatives of the Polish government negotiated with the Solidarity oppositional groups; in June, in partially free elections, the communist government ...

North America

Simple Is Sometimes Simplistic, and Stupid

Is it Really Smart to Narrow the Impeachment?

October 22, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

A focused impeachment that builds public support is surely a good thing; I’ve been arguing this for the past six months. But it seems extremely foolish to believe that focus can only be achieved through a narrowing of vision, and it seems worse than foolish to believe that Trump’s other abuses of power ...

The Left

Keeping the Left Alive: Michael Walzer’s Political Action Reissued

If any book can help left-wing activists figure out how not to burn out, this is probably it

October 22, 2019 • by Geoffrey Kurtz

That hopeful and interesting work is the subject of Walzer’s book Political Action: A Practical Guide to Movement Politics. Originally published in the spring of 1971 and reissued this year by New York Review Books, Political Action is in a genre by itself. Like an organizing manual but more thoughtful and suggestive, like ...

North America

Democrats Need to Treat Impeachment More Politically

Holding hearings in public now would be a start

October 19, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The story reports on the information shared with the House Intelligence Committee by Fiona Hill. But why did the New York Times not question the fact that Hill was testifying in private? Hill is only the most recent current or former national security official to be deposed by the House Intelligence Committee about this latest, and ...

Democracy

Why Did Trump Let Erdogan Go?

The Turkish Invasion of Syria and the Global Alliance among Authoritarian Leaders

October 18, 2019 • by Utku Balaban

Trump imposed sanctions on Turkey, which is likely Trump’s way of both appeasing the opposition in the GOP and indirectly supporting Erdogan, as, in their current scope, the sanctions were not an effective instrument to deter Erdogan from going further. Furthermore, Trump accused Kurds of releasing the ISIS-related prisoners, while there is strong evidence ...

North America

Trump and the Shifting Landscape of Political Conflict

What Minneapolis Teaches Us

October 16, 2019 • by Joe Lowndes

Trump's rally at the Target Center in Minneapolis on October 9th -- particularly his attack on the Somali community -- highlights important elements of what is likely to be his campaign strategy for 2020. We are all too familiar with Trump’s xenophobia and race-baiting. But much has changed on the ground ...

The Media

Perpetuating the Uribe Hegemony

How the Media helped to install and normalize Authoritarianism in Colombia

October 15, 2019 • by Sara Tufano

When they were finally allowed into the camp, the peasants found a hole in the ground and a few meters away, the body of Dimar, killed with a shot to the head. This assassination reactivated memories of the so-miscalled "false positives", or extrajudicial executions, that many of us in Colombia believed were ...

Europe & Central Asia

The Façade of Justice in Poland

Undermining the rule of law, hiding social inequality

October 15, 2019 • by Paweł Marczewski

Although social transfers do consolidate support for Law and Justice, especially among the new voters of the party, they are not a simple economic transaction, in which political support is exchanged for money. The welfare transactions are perceived as a symbol of a new beginning after three decades of austerity ...

Blue Monday

Anti-Semitism at the Bard Conference?

When early reports don’t tell the whole story about a protest

October 14, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

This is why I re-posted a powerful piece by Batya Ungar-Sargon entitled “I Was Protested at Bard College for Being a Jew” (Forward, October 12 2019) on Facebook. In the piece Ungar-Sargon reported that she was protested “for being a Jew” because a panel discussion on anti-Semitism featuring her and ...

The Media

Fake News, Conspiracy Theories, and New Media

Plan Andinia and Anti-Semitism in Argentina

October 12, 2019 • by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Cuneo’s oral manifesto went viral across multiple platforms, such as What’s App, Facebook, YouTube, and endless email chains, sparking a public debate over Argentinean Jews’ sacred and exclusive loyalty towards Israel. Pro-Cuneo posts offered many cases of public figures, all of them Jewish, that were Mossad double agents or involved ...

The Media

Could Turkey Just Be OK Again?

Media and the drift towards authoritarianism

October 10, 2019 • by Ergin Bulut

Liberals in the U.S. were -- and some still are -- shocked. The election of Trump devastated the liberals’ American dream. Trump’s grotesque political style revealed that the U.S. wasn’t as awe-inspiring as the liberals imagined it to be. And yet, hadn’t they just elected the nation’s first black President? ...

North America

The Moral Clarity of Children

What Climate Strikers Have to Teach Elizabeth Warren

October 9, 2019 • by Hannah Leffingwell

The quick answer was: yes, Warren’s speech did feel monumental. And yes, the Climate Strike was an event of global significance. The two rallies inspire the assembled crowds, and me. Most importantly, their positioning as bookends to the week’s political news brought into focus how these two agendas might intersect. Warren highlighted the innovations and ...