Margo Anderson— In these dog days of summer 2015, the 2016 presidential election campaign is already in full swing. Twenty-two announced candidates (seventeen Republicans and five Democrats) are already filling the airwaves with their pitches, though the first actual delegate selection event, the Iowa Caucuses, is not for another five
Pierre Birnbaum— On June 21st, 1936, following the June 7th signing of the Matignon Agreements, the Popular Front government voted in the forty-hour workweek. They were led by Léon Blum, who had triumphed in the May 1936 elections. The law was a real revolution, a reconsideration of labor conditions for
Ian Shapiro— Robert Dahl died on February 5, 2014 at the age of ninety-eight. He might well have been the most important political scientist of the last century, and he was certainly one of its preeminent social scientists. In many ways, Dahl created the field of modern political science, understood
Margot Anderson – July 11 is World Population Day, a yearly commemoration established in 1989 by the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Program of the United Nations to focus attention on world population issues. This year’s theme focuses on “Vulnerable Populations in Emergencies” particularly the “hygiene, health, dignity,
Patrick Smith— What will come of the mid-June murders in Charleston is still to be determined. We have already seen an extraordinary display of solidarity and restraint as forms of power among South Carolina blacks close to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. And the news from Columbia, South Carolina’s capital,
Firmin DeBrabander— With the horrific mass shooting at a historic African American church in Charleston last month, gun control was again atop the news cycle—briefly. We soon learned the attack was racially motivated, and gun control was quickly eclipsed by calls to remove the Confederate flag from statehouses throughout the
Stephen Eric Bronner— An old friend once told me that being a decent person means having a guilty conscience. And there was enough to feel guilty about as 2015 unfolded. Ethical uncertainty over how a liberal society should deal with the intolerant has become strikingly evident following the murders of four French
Karen M. Paget— While writing Patriotic Betrayal, which chronicles a major Cold War covert operation with the U.S. National Student Association, I began a file in which I collected evidence of renewed covert activities in the late 1990s. The newspaper clips came from different parts of the globe in little
Mil Duncan— Poverty alleviation has always been politically charged in the United States. Are the poor trapped by their own bad choices—dropping out of school, having children young and out of wedlock, getting in trouble with the law? “Cultural” failings? Or is it the paucity of good jobs and good
Steven Gimbel— When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to a joint meeting of the US Congress, one could almost see the ghost of Albert Einstein in the room. Netanyahu was urging a tough stance in negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program, citing its existence as an existential threat