Showing 1 - 8 of 8
The popular decimation of India's democracy
Oped, Pranab Bardhan, Published on 18/05/2024
» India's ongoing parliamentary election, in which nearly a billion people casting their votes over a six-week period, should represent an extraordinary exercise of democracy. The bleak reality, however, is that the election appears poised to consolidate a decade-long process of democratic decay, which has included the decimation of liberal institutions and practices and weakening of political competition. After all, the leader who has presided over this process -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- remains wildly popular.
A 14th Century warning for fans of 21st Century demagogues
Max Hastings, Published on 11/02/2024
» A history student told me recently that he loves researching the 20th Century but can’t see the point of the Middle Ages. I responded that it can be a big help to understanding our own times — very troubled times — to view them in the context even of the remote past.
Time to put brakes on immigration
News, Max Hastings, Published on 04/01/2024
» No politician can be expected to tell us all of the truth. If they did so, they would lose an election even for town dogcatcher. Nonetheless it doesn't seem too much to suggest, in this season of hope, that 2024 might go significantly better than 2023 if more of our leaders around the world acknowledged realities about some of the troubles that beset us.
Real social networks coming to an end
Oped, Daron Acemoglu, Published on 09/09/2022
» Not only are billions of people around the world glued to their mobile phones, but the information they consume has changed dramatically -- and not for the better. On dominant social media platforms like Facebook, researchers have documented that falsehoods spread faster and more widely than similar content that includes accurate information. Though users are not demanding misinformation, the algorithms that determine what people see tend to favour sensational, inaccurate and misleading content, because that is what generates "engagement" and thus advertising revenue.
It pays to have the right enemy in election races
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/12/2021
» The right enemy can be a major asset in politics, as Chilean voters have just demonstrated once again. All the opinion polls had the two presidential candidates neck and neck before Sunday's election, but a few days before the vote it came out that the father of far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast was a Nazi.
The secret to making democracy civil
News, Matt Qvortrup, Published on 16/08/2021
» 'When you take responsibility away from people you make them irresponsible," proclaimed English politician Sir Keith Joseph almost half a century ago.
EU elections point to hectic Brexit agenda
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 29/05/2019
» The best way of describing what just happened in the European Union elections is to say that the choices are getting clearer -- and a lot of people are realising which side they are on.
Challenging the norms of capitalism
News, Pankaj Mishra, Published on 27/12/2018
» We live in an age of political earthquakes: That much, at least, seemed clear from newspaper headlines nearly every day of 2018. But intellectual tectonic plates were also shifting throughout the year, with ideas once dismissed as the ravings of the loony left breaking into the mainstream.