Governance

Mariana Budjeryn reflects on the tenth anniversary of her native Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity.

In late 2017, Mexico made headlines as Italian company Enel bid what was then a world-record low price for renewable energy in the country’s third such energy auction. This development was possible due to the historical and sweeping energy reforms passed with broad support in Mexico in 2013. Then-President Enrique Peña Nieto had succeeded where previous Mexican presidents had failed, reversing decades of resource nationalism and overhauling the energy sector through constitutional reforms that gave the private sector a larger role and advantaged renewable energy in Mexico’s economy. The 2017 auction seemed to indicate Mexico’s bright future not only as a conventional oil producer, but also as a clean energy power.

Opportunistic repression arises when states use crises to suppress the political opposition. An examination of the relationship between COVID-19 shutdown policies and state violence against civilians in Africa, including and a subnational case study of Uganda, tests this theory.

Jacqueline Hazelton writes that regimes battling a counterinsurgency often depend on corruption to stay in power.

Winning hearts and minds doesn't defeat insurgent groups, author Jacqueline Hazelton argues. So why does the United States still rely on counterinsurgency?

It has been a year since the US and the world went into recession.  Because of its origins in the sudden pandemic, it was possible to reliably discern the advent of the recession before it was reflected in any of the standard economic statistics, which is rare.  (I hope it shocks no one to learn that economists can’t normally predict recessions.)

By the end of the second quarter of 2020, US GDP had fallen 11 %. This record plunge took the US economy from a level that is estimated to have been 1.0% above potential output at the end of 2019, to a level 10 % below potential in mid-2020.  Potential output is the level of GDP that is produced when unemployment is at its so-called natural rate, the capital stock is operating at the capacity for which it was designed, buildings have their normal occupancy rates, etc.

The United States and the world entered recession a year ago. Normally, economists can’t predict the onset of a downturn. But because this recession stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic, they could reliably discern its beginnings without waiting for the standard economic indicators.

Ten years after the onset of the Arab Spring, the Middle East and North Africa are torn between two visions of progress: a democratic one that seeks to replace the leaders who dominate the region, and an ostensibly modernizing one that seeks to replace the people who inhabit it. Though the latter project is currently ascendant, it is likely to founder on its own internal contradictions. Arab publics may be ambivalent about democracy, but the region retains considerable democratic potential.

The Security and Global Health Project is proud to present a weekly web series with Security Mom Juliette Kayyem and Medicine Mom Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux. Each week, our experts will answer your questions from quarantine and give you advice on staying sane and sanitary in a global crisis. We hope you'll join our Moms every Tuesday, and if you have a question that you want answered, tweet with #QuestionsFromQuarantine.

American presidents customarily leave office when voters reject them. Czars, emperors, and would-be prime ministers for life do whatever they can to hold on to power.