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Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked many in the West. So did Hamas’s surprise attack on southern Israel in October 2023 and Israel’s response of massive violence and ethnic cleansing. For all the talk in policy circles about a “rules-based order,” most academic observers, liberals as well as realists, were caught […]
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Let me describe the activities of an organization leading advocacy for liberal democracy in Zambia in recent years. When politicians spoke of changing the country’s constitution to end presidential term limits, it organized a civil society coalition to protest. When the police threw the opposition leader in jail for four months on charges of treason, […]
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On March 4, Mexico took a remarkable step backward: Congress approved a new electoral reform that will, once again, ban consecutive reelection for all elected officials starting in 2030, with the stated goal of “preventing political entrenchment and nepotism.” After only a few election cycles with reelection, with the original ban on consecutive reelection just […]
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Even as global politics feels increasingly chaotic, the behavior of the world’s leading powers remains strikingly predictable. New research shows that when great powers intervene abroad, they do so not to spread ideology or uphold norms — but to protect clients, preserve influence, and defend the hierarchies that sustain their status. ……… Since the end […]
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Two enduring truths shape the study of human rights. First, states violate the rights of their own citizens at an alarmingly high rate. Second, these same states are rarely held accountable for their actions. Despite decades of international advocacy, treaties, and tribunals, impunity remains the norm. My new book, Escaping Justice: State Impunity in the Age […]
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In a high-profile address to US generals earlier this week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared, “We don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemy.” His words are exactly what US President Donald Trump has been advocating: not just loosening […]
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Every policymaker knows the dilemma: should governments trust people to do the right thing, or make sure they do it? The safer option has usually been enforcement. Write the rules, monitor behavior, punish violations. Citizens obey because they have to. Yet most regulators also know something they rarely act on: people tend to follow rules […]
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In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the New York Times documented over 145 instances of workers being disciplined or terminated for comments related to Kirk. Many of those workers were professors—and a surprising number were tenured professors. In other words, academia’s most elite workers were being punished or fired alongside “health care workers, lawyers […]
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