Comparative Politics

A more fruitful comparison emerges from the obvious fact that Biden seeks to trace a middle path between Donald Trump’s far-right nationalism and Bernie Sanders’s democratic socialism. Long before the notion of a “Third Way” was appropriated by British Labour Party leader Tony Blair in the 1990s, this was a staple talking point of a specific strand of continental European conservatism, which sought to distinguish itself from both fascism on the far-right and revolutionary socialism on the far-left during the interwar and immediate postwar years: the political tradition of Christian democracy.

This is the family of political parties that came to power in most continental European countries in the aftermath of World War II under the leadership of such figures as Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi, and Robert Schuman. But it also remains prominent today in Germany under the chancellorship of Angela Merkel and in the European Union’s Parliament and Commission, with Ursula Von der Leyen at the helm.

Biden’s two main political rivals at the moment are routinely thought of in reference to European political traditions—social democracy in the case of Sanders and far-right nationalism in the case of Trump. It’s time to do the same for Biden. The Democratic front-runner’s political ideology isn’t a watered-down version of his rivals’ or even his predecessors’. It is best understood as approximating a distinct European tradition

Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $582,029 and $1.56 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 29 separate transactions.

Burr is not a particularly wealthy member of the Senate: Roll Call estimated his net worth at $1.7 million in 2018, indicating that the February sales significantly shaped his financial fortunes and spared him from some of the pain that many Americans are now facing.

Members of Congress are required by law to disclose their securities transactions. Burr was one of just three senators who in 2012 opposed the bill that explicitly barred lawmakers and their staff from using nonpublic information for trades and required regular disclosure of those trades. In opposing the bill, Burr argued at the time that insider trading laws already applied to members of Congress.

A top 'Ndrangheta clan member was arrested in Italy after police, helped by the anti-coronavirus lockdown, spotted the fugitive smoking inside a seemingly deserted safe house

Cesare Cordi, described by police as a "leading figure of the 'Ndrangheta of Locri" in southern Calabria, had been on the run since August, when a judge issued a warrant for the 42-year-old's arrest

"The faint glow of a cigarette -- caught through the crack of a shutter -- was enough to give the carabinieri the certainty that in that house was the wanted man,"

As it sweeps across nations, the coronavirus is exposing systemic flaws. In China, it was freedom of information; here in the US it is the massive disparities in the way people are treated depending on their economic circumstances and their immigration status.

"If you could name one thing that would really change your life, what would it be?" I ask. I’m expecting him to say a better house, or more food, or a doctor, or education for his kids. I’m expecting him to mention one of the things relief money often provides for.But Lebrun grins broadly at me, revealing a missing tooth, and says, "What would help me most? A land registry."

What Lebrun needs is security – security he can build a future on. And he needs agencies to safeguard that security. What Lebrun needs is bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy is also the system that organises everything into procedures that are the same for everybody. It’s what holds societies together. It’s not excessive; it’s indispensable.

In Liverpool, shocking new data shows that there has been an unprecedented rise in infant mortality in recent years, with academics attributing at least a third of those deaths to rising child poverty.

we now have clear evidence of how the government's agenda over the past 10 years has directly and negatively affected people's lives

This week, Professor Sir Michael Marmot's review into Health Equity in England was published, 10 years after he first warned that growing inequalities in the country would lead to worse health outcomes for people.

Imagine an empire with a massive security sector, one barely accountable to the democratic will. This coercive system, though appearing self-perpetuating, represents an elite echelon’s efforts to protect and consolidate power. It employs so many people that its maintenance and funding is necessary, not because of the dictates of national security, but simply to keep all its workers from becoming “superfluous.” With a repressive apparatus notorious for its abuses, this security sector fosters the very domestic opposition it is designed to combat.

this description actually comes from George Kennan’s foundational article “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” which appeared in Foreign Affairs, under the byline X, in 1947. Kennan, perhaps more than anyone else, shaped the rhetoric of the Cold War in a way that made it seem preordained, inevitable. He is most often remembered for calling out the supposedly innate qualities of Russian culture—spiritual deprivation, cynicism, and conformity—upon which communist ideology had been grafted. This combination, he argued, was destined to conflict with the innate qualities of Americanism—its freedom of worship, its emphasis on individuality, and its support of business. But the dominance of the security sector was another persistent motif in Kennan’s work; he dedicated five paragraphs of “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” to the “organs of suppression.” Secret police lurked everywhere, the narrative went, and prisons were the Soviet Union’s primary feature. By 1953, under Joseph Stalin, 2.6 million people were locked up in the gulag and over 3 million more were forcibly resettled— a total of around 3 percent of the population kept under state control. Kennan’s point, like those of other foundational Cold War tracts, was clear: unlike the United States, the Soviet Union was brutally repressive.

The pathway toward the permanent war economy of NSC 68’s vision was not direct. It was contested in Congress and in public opinion. Critics rightly feared the emergence of a “garrison state,” a term that has been largely lost today.

the Trump administration is cutting the number of Chinese nationals allowed to work for Beijing’s state-run media outlets in the U.S. by nearly half, citing China’s expulsion of three U.S. correspondents last month and Beijing’s increasingly hostile actions toward foreign — and local — press

“a personnel cap” on five Chinese media outlets that the State Department reclassified as “foreign missions” last month — in other words, agents of foreign influence rather than genuine media outlets

“It could play into Beijing’s hands, which is looking for excuses to further restrict foreign media’s operations in China,” said Yaqiu Wang, China Researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Brexit is causing far-right views on immigration and identity to be drawn into the mainstream, a report has warned. Research by Hope Not Hate found that Britain’s departure from the EU has fuelled discussions of loyalty, elitism and patriotism, “drawing people who might have otherwise have been attracted to the far right back into the mainstream right”.

anti-Muslim prejudice, demeaning rhetoric on migrants and refugees and notions of a ‘cultural war’ against social liberalism

partly as a consequence of politicians co-opting far-right narratives to gain support and partly because of the newer far right engaging in wider issues

all past trade deal presuppose the two parties want to get closer. Among other things, that helps increase the likelihood of good faith dealing. The fact that the UK was an obstreperous member of the EU and is taking an even more high-handed posture means the EU isn’t going to be keen about going fudgy on anything important (Irish border matters being a potential exception because no one had a good idea about what to do)

the UK and US are sparring over Huawei and the UK’s proposed digital services tax, as the US intends to muscle the UK into the US regulatory framework (yes, chlorinated chicken will be in your future!). But on top of that, House Leader Pelosi has cleared her throat and pointed out that Congress will not approve any deal if the UK has damaged the Good Friday Agreement

A border in the Irish Sea is not a matter of conjecture. It is described in a treaty that Johnson signed and waved in triumph. But his enthusiasm was for the idea of a deal, not the real thing. He likes deals for their instant retail value in domestic politics, believing that problems in the small print can be blustered away. That is not how the trade negotiations work in Brussels, where the deal is the small print…

The revolt against the judges in the United States and Poland, and the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, is little or nothing to do with actual cases and judgments. It is instead about removing or discrediting those independent checks and balances which prevent those with executive power from easily getting their way.

attacks on the independent judiciary need to be seen as akin to the attacks on the impartial civil service and and diplomatic service, the free press, public service broadcasting, and those parts of the legislature beyond the executive’s easy grasp

the invocation of heady snappy legitimising phrases (such as the “Will of the People”, “Taking Back Control”, “Get Brexit Done” and “Restoring Sovereignty”) that are intended to over-ride any opposition or concerns

any effort to fight discrimination requires some level of disruption. For those who are catered to by an exclusionary status quo, the protest movement is often their only source of discomfort. So it becomes easy for them to perceive protesters, activists and other movement-makers as the “real” problem.

in most cases, our societies benefit from the conflict that is produced when people demand inclusion, even if there are others who insist on maintaining unjust norms

There is no perfect social movement, and there can never be a universally acceptable way to agitate for change. Still, movements offer marginalised people a unifying and often effective way to move our societies closer to ideals of justice and inclusion.

Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, has long had the civil service in his sights. If his reform agenda is about competence, capacity and accountability that could be good news. If it means civil servants are cowed into not challenging ministers on the implications of their plans, it will be bad. The risk is that we end up with Americanisation – with a politically appointed top layer deterring good professionals from staying. Worse still would be the Trumpification of the civil service – with key posts unfilled or filled by people who are wholly unqualified.

The roots of all this turmoil lie in the casual approach to constitutional matters that allowed David Cameron to legislate for a referendum as a stratagem to solve a problem within his own party. His memoir suggests that he toyed with the possibility of setting a minimum threshold leave would have to reach in order to win – if he had gone ahead with this, remain would have carried the day. Unlike other countries that use referendums more often and more wisely, the UK has an ad hoc approach to them that has meant since 2016 we have been grappling with how to reconcile representative with direct democracy, an issue finally resolved – though obviously not to everyone’s satisfaction – by the 2019 election

Brexit and the election have brought into focus the fragility of the final pillar on which our reputation for stable government rests, the union itself. They have given the SNP a pretext to reopen the independence question, apparently settled in 2014, and have tilted opinion in Northern Ireland, making the prospect of a border poll more likely. Both nations voted to remain in 2016, but the UK system – unlike in formal federations – did not assign that any constitutional significance

The Trump administration is quietly fighting a new package of sanctions on Russia, The Daily Beast has learned. A Trump State Department official sent a 22-page letter to a top Senate chairman on Tuesday making a wide-ranging case against a new sanctions bill. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham—usually a staunch ally of the White House—introduced the legislation earlier this year. It’s designed to punish Russian individuals and companies over the Kremlin’s targeting of Ukraine, as well as its 2016 election interference in the U.S., its activities in Syria, and its attacks on dissidents. 

Despite Trump’s strong opposition, the bill passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday morning. Five senators opposed it, all Republicans: Chairman Jim Risch, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Johnny Isacson, Sen. John Barrasso, and Sen. Ron Johnson. 

With a combined total of 14 journalists killed, Latin America is now as deadly for journalists as the Middle East., with all of its wars.

more journalists (59%) are now being killed in countries at peace than in war zones. At the same time, there has been a 2% increase in journalists being deliberately murdered or targeted.

Worldwide, a total of 389 journalists are currently in prison in connection with their work, 12% more than last year. Nearly half of these journalists are being held by three countries: China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

When asked about changes that have taken place since the end of the communist era, people across the former Eastern Bloc express support for the shift from one-party rule and a state-controlled economy to a multiparty system and a market economy. However, Russians in particular are less supportive of these changes.

People in many of the countries surveyed are less supportive of the changes to the political and economic systems now than they were in 1991. However, since 2009, there has been a notable uptick in positive sentiment toward these changes in about half of the countries surveyed. Russia, a notable exception, is the only country where support has decreased since 2009.

More than six-in-ten Russians agree with the statement “It is a great misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists.” This represents an increase of 13 percentage points since 2011. Only three-in-ten disagree with the statement.