Archive for the 'AP Introductory Materials' Category
Wednesday, December 28th, 2011
Islamist spokesmen and leaders of the revived Islamist mainstream are bending over backwards to give reassurances that they will promote a peaceful, pluralistic and tolerant version of Islam. The rights of women and religious and ethnic minorities will be respected, they say, and the people’s democratic verdict will be accepted if they lose elections.
Whatever their doubts, most democrats in the Arab world reckon that Islamists who say they will abide peacefully by the rules of the game must be allowed—indeed encouraged—to participate in mainstream politics: far better than forcing them into a violent, conspiratorial underground. All the same, the well of mistrust on both sides runs deep.
Many liberals still think the Islamists, however mild they sound today, are bent on taking over in the long run, would abandon democracy once they got into power and would use every sort of chicanery and violence to achieve their goal.
Two articles on the relationship between Islam and democracy in light of the 2011 “Arab Spring”
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Sunday, September 18th, 2011
In this RSA Animate, renowned academic David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?
RSA Animate – Crises of Capitalism
Posted in AP Introductory Materials, AP Post AP Seminar, USH: Post AP Ideas, World Civ-Cold War in West, World Civ-Post Cold War | No Comments »
Sunday, September 18th, 2011
There’s abundant evidence for the need of it. The old one-dimensional categories of ‘right’ and ‘left’, established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today’s complex political landscape. For example, who are the ‘conservatives’ in today’s Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?
On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It’s not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can’t explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as ‘right-wingers’, yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.
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Sunday, September 18th, 2011
Economist Yasheng Huang compares China to India, and asks how China’s authoritarian rule contributed to its astonishing economic growth — leading to a big question: Is democracy actually holding India back? Huang’s answer may surprise you.
Check out Yasheng’s great Ted Talk
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Friday, May 20th, 2011
“IF SOMETHING cannot go on for ever, it will stop,” Herb Stein once observed caustically. The American economist’s aphorism has proved apt of late. Could it apply to the growth of the state?
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Friday, May 20th, 2011
According to Rupak Chattopadhyay, a Canadian scholar, federations (and the constitutional anomalies that go with them) are desirable in countries that are large or ethnically mixed or both. He thinks that Egypt, despite its history of strong state power, may now need to become decentralised to cope with the needs of around 84m people; even a small country like Libya may need a federal arrangement to accommodate its mixture of tribes and local interests. He is shortly to become president of the Forum of Federations, a body that is based in Canada and backed by nine governments.
Why is the tie between federalism and democracy so awkward? In most federations the units have formally equal status, regardless of population, so voters in small units fare better. Thus the 544,270 residents of Wyoming have two senators—the same as the 37m people of California
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Friday, May 20th, 2011
Violence, it seems, is always with us, like poverty. And that might seem all there is to be said: violence is bad, it is worse in poor countries and it makes them poorer.
But this year’s World Development Report, the flagship publication of the World Bank, suggests there is a lot more to say. Violence, the authors argue, is not just one cause of poverty among many: it is becoming the primary cause. Countries that are prey to violence are often trapped in it. Those that are not are escaping poverty. This has profound implications both for poor countries trying to pull themselves together and for rich ones trying to help.
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Monday, October 4th, 2010
There are various tools that Economists use to measure the economy. No one tool offers a full or clear picture of economic health. Rather, these tools must be used in concert. Here is a basic definition and description of GDP, GNP, PPP and The Big Mac Index (all you need for APCG).
Of course, there are more creative and holistic means to measure the health of the economy. For example, statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation’s success by its productivity — instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn’t have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.
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Monday, May 24th, 2010
The return of big government means that policymakers must grapple again with some basic questions. They are now even harder to answer…
Fifteen years ago it seemed that the great debate about the proper size and role of the state had been resolved. In Britain and America alike, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton pronounced the last rites of “the era of big government”. Privatising state-run companies was all the rage. The Washington consensus reigned supreme: persuade governments to put on “the golden straitjacket”, in Tom Friedman’s phrase, and prosperity would follow.
Today big government is back with a vengeance: not just as a brute fact, but as a vigorous ideology…
Read this comparative perspective arguing for smaller government. And respond to these questions.
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