Essays

Does the gender of a world leader matter? Having a female U.S. president might break a glass ceiling, but the policies of the woman holding the office could still leave women in the basement.

Barack Obama’s Presidency

By James T. Kloppenberg

Obamacare. The Wall Street bailout. Race relations. The Iran deal. The Arab upheavals. How will history judge the 44th American president? Much will depend on what happens after his successor takes office.

Unraveling in the Kremlin

By Lilia Shevtsova

Vladimir Putin intervened in Ukraine and Syria to mobilize domestic support for Russia’s decaying political system. But how long can the Kremlin survive on false images, fake agendas, and manufactured complexes?

Pakistan’s Democratic Opportunity

By Madiha Afzal

Amid a Taliban insurgency and discontent with government officials, Pakistanis remain strongly attached to free elections. But until politicians improve the standard of governance and the popular military recedes from politics, democracy will remain incomplete.

America’s Misadventures in the Middle East

By Chas W. Freeman, Jr.

Decades of U.S. policy blunders add up to a foreign policy disaster of historic proportions. With the region in transition, will Washington abandon delusion and deal with the region’s realities? Don’t bet on it.

After the Paris Agreement

By Hoda Baraka and Payal Parekh

By The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic

The international deal to combat global warming comes into force in 2016. For climate activists, it’s the beginning of a new stage in the struggle to hold nations accountable for their greenhouse emissions.

The Yazidi Genocide

Beheading of men, rape, and enslavement of women—the destruction of a minority ethnic community is among the crimes committed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Will the group be brought to justice for its persecution of the Yazidis?

Jorge Bergoglio, then archbishop of Buenos Aires, at a drug rehabilitation center, Buenos Aires, 2011. Fernando Massobrio/GDA via Associated Press

The Education of Pope Francis

By Paul Vallely

When Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the Roman Catholic pope in 2013, he took his name from Francis of Assisi and dedicated himself to championing the poor. The first non-European pontiff in a thousand years, and the first from the southern hemisphere, he launched his papacy with a condemnation of capitalism’s culture of waste and indifference to poverty.

Children playing in a polluted river, Jakarta, Sept. 19, 2012. Enny Nuraheni/Reuters

Our Common Home

By Pope Francis

In an extract from the papal encyclical Laudato Si’, the bishop of Rome makes an impassioned plea to save the planet from ecological destruction: “We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world.”

ISIS fighters appear in a video online on Feb. 4, 2015.

How ISIS Will End

By Mark Juergensmeyer

The Islamic State group is losing territory in Iraq and Syria, but it may have staying power in one of its three permutations: ISIS is simultaneously a movement for Sunni Muslim empowerment, a global jihadist movement, and an apocalyptic cult.

The European Central Bank, Frankfurt, Feb. 22, 2015. Mikka Luster (mikka.is)

Life and Death of the Euro

By Jacques Sapir

Europe’s response to the Greek debt crisis in 2015 exposed European cooperation and solidarity as a hollow claim. The euro has become a Greek tragedy, resulting in falling incomes, rising unemployment, and fraying social fabric. Saving the European Union may require killing the single currency.

Campaign poster for National Front leader Marine Le Pen, Frejus, March 18, 2014. Eric Gaillard/Reuters

Marine Le Pen’s Challenge

By Alexandre Dézé and Nonna Mayer and Sylvain Crépon

Young, modern, and media friendly, the daughter of National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen has recast the extreme right party as a less xenophobic, more palatable, movement. But if the National Front fails to shed its racist ideology, it is unlikely to build on its electoral successes.

Far-right protesters carry banner reading “No Islam in Poland”

Crisis of Identity

By Michel Wieviorka

Europe’s social and economic order fundamentally changed with the end of the industrial era in the 1970s. The resulting tensions led to an identity crisis, as minorities sought to address injustices and nationalists agitated against cultural and religious diversity. Is multiculturalism now destined to fail?

Man holds poster of German Chancellor Angela Merkel during march of refugees fleeing Hungary

Our Great Migration Challenge

By Peter D. Sutherland

The current refugee crisis in Europe underscores the imperative of integration: to achieve healthy societies, immigrants must integrate, but they must also be offered a real chance to reach their full potential.

Syrian refugees arriving on the island of Kos, Greece

Closing the Gates

By Catherine Wihtol de Wenden

Europe’s security-driven response to the surge of refugees has been cowardly and xenophobic. There are more viable approaches: granting temporary protections, offering broader alternatives to asylum for those fleeing conflict, and adopting more flexible visa policies.

Police patrol the predominantly North African neighborhood La Goutte d’Or, Paris

The Paradox of Arab France

By Pascal Blanchard

A century after the mass immigration of North Africans began, Arabs in France are more present in politics, the economy, and culture than ever before. Yet part of the French population rejects a shared history in favor of the myth of the “interior enemy.”

French demonstration after the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine

Je Suis Charlie?

By Emmanuel Todd

The Charlie Hebdo attack prompted an unprecedented collective response throughout France. Was it an admirable act of national solidarity in defense of press freedom or an outburst of xenophobia in a country that has lost its way?

Leaders at the 26th Arab League Summit, Sharm El-Sheikh

A Call for Arab Diplomacy

By Nabil Fahmy

In the midst of the Middle East turmoil, Arab diplomacy is strangely absent. Arab states must approach a changing world in wide-ranging agreement to reorient foreign policy away from excessive international dependence.

U.S. envoy Dennis Ross with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Fantasies of a Middle East Envoy

By Ahmad Samih Khalidi