Project Syndicate

By Michael Spence MILAN – How to strike the right balance between the state and the market, and ensure the proper functioning of both, has been debated for centuries.

By Nicholas Reed Langen LONDON – Day by day, week by week, courts are increasingly becoming the front line in the struggle to preserve democracy from populists and authoritarians.

By Harold James BERLIN – Since global financial stability ought to be considered a public good, many international institutions devote themselves to establishing the conditions to sustain it.

By Josh Burek CAMBRIDGE – As the crypto winter thaws, and financial institutions renew their interest in digital assets, an old debate has re-emerged over whether blockchain is truly a “trust machine,” as The Economist described it in 2015.

By Ana María Ibáñez WASHINGTON, DC – Nearly everyone agrees that the unequal distribution of income, wealth, and opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has hindered efforts to build cohesive societies and robust democracies, as well as frustrating the ambitions of young people.

By Nina L. Khrushcheva NEW YORK – Back in 2013, when Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was facing bogus criminal charges, I recalled when my great-grandfather, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, compared Russia to a tub full of dough.

By Colin Coleman NEW YORK – Africa could be the largest source of global economic growth over the next half-century.

By  Chris Patten LONDON – During the darkest days of World War II, as young British pilots valiantly fought the Luftwaffe over southern England and German forces prepared to invade the British Isles, Prime Minister Winston Churchill took on the task of boosting his fellow citizens’ morale, offering them a brighter future to look forward to.

By Shlomo Ben-Ami TEL AVIV – A year into World War II, the United Kingdom’s War Cabinet established a committee that would be responsible for clarifying the UK’s objectives in the conflict.

By Jan-Werner Mueller PRINCETON – What should democracies do about parties that use elections and other democratic means to destroy democracy itself?

By Marco Buti and Giancarlo Corsetti FLORENCE – The 25th anniversary of the euro’s introduction, which has passed largely under the radar, offers an opportune moment to assess the current state of the greatest monetary experiment in modern history.

By Harold James BERLIN – Public opinion about the world today is oddly bifurcated.

By  Fawaz A. Gerges LONDON – As the war in Gaza enters its fourth month, many in the Middle East and across the Global South have been struck both by the ferocity of Israel’s military campaign and by Western governments’ unwavering support for it.

By Scott Barrett, Noah Kaufman, and Joseph E. Stiglitz NEW YORK – Casual observers of the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai (COP28) can be forgiven for attributing high stakes to the event.

By Benjamin N. Gedan CARTAGENA – By facilitating the inauguration of Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo, despite a last-ditch effort to overturn his landslide election victory, US President Joe Biden has reaffirmed his longstanding commitment to defending democracies around the world.

By Nina L. Khrushcheva MOSCOW – In the late eighteenth century, Catherine the Great planned a tour of Crimea, which her court favorite, Count Grigory Potemkin, had conquered a few years earlier.

By Ashoka Mody PRINCETON – On January 22, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will preside over the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.

By Edoardo Campanella CAMBRIDGE – Over the past three years, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine exposed the vulnerabilities stemming from deep global economic integration.

By Jorge G. Castañeda NEW YORK – Many countries, from the United States and Uruguay to India and Indonesia, will hold elections in 2024.

By Peter Sands GENEVA – Among the most shocking images from the COVID-19 pandemic were of people gasping for air, unable to breathe, their blood oxygen so severely depleted that some died in ambulances lined up outside hospitals.