More reading material for the week, with stories from around the world.
Let’s talk about Jacinda Ardern (March 2020). New Zealand opts for reproductive choice, raising questions about the nature of the coalition led by its progressive prime minister.
Moral equivalence, convention edition (August 2020). Obscuring the difference between violent protests and mainstream centre-left politics is a dangerous game, even when it’s done in the service of liberal goals.
Death of a National (December 2020). Doug Anthony, one of the enigmatic greats of Australian politics, passes from the scene.
Texas vs civilisation (September 2021). A US supreme court decision raises the prospect of giving the fundamentalists in the Republican Party what they say they want – possibly at a large political cost.
War for Russia / The friends of Mr Putin (February/March 2022). Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine stakes the future of civilisation on the prospects of regime change in Russia.
Presidential problems in the Americas, revisited (January 2023). The case for parliamentary government is strengthened, not weakened, by recent troubles in Brazil and the United States.
Fifty years on, 25% off (August 2023). Remembering some lessons from the Whitlam government’s across-the-board tariff cut of 1973.
The end for Artsakh (September 2023). The Armenians of Artsakh meet defeat in their more than thirty-year struggle for self-determination.
Harris gets her chance (July 2024). Kamala Harris is given her big opportunity at a time when her country and her party are facing disaster.
The fall of John Pesutto (December 2024). The Victorian Liberal Party changes leaders yet again, setting itself up for a strategy to target the outer suburbs.
Iraq and Iran: compare and contrast (June 2025). Another unwarranted American attack in the Middle East, and there are both similarities and differences with the invasion of Iraq 22 years earlier.
South Korea balances between madmen (September 2025). South Korea’s new president wants good relations with all of his neighbors, but balancing their competing interests is not getting any easier.
The World is Not Enough 