Essays Archive

14 March 2024
The authoritarian regime in Iran has invested heavily in digital surveillance to identify and silence voices of dissent. Key institutions have emerged to develop new legal…
20 December 2023
As the world is rapidly ageing, there will be an unprecedented demand for domestic and caring labour, for which many countries are currently not prepared. The low status and…
31 October 2023
The government of President Biden has rolled out a “modern American industrial strategy”, dramatically qualifying the 40-year western consensus on free markets, globalization and…
23 October 2023
In this essay, I relate my personal experience in politics with the construction of the political economy of New Developmentalism and the definition of two alternative forms of…
22 June 2023
While the shock of Covid-19 has generated draconian containment policies in virtually all countries to limit the spread of the pandemic, it also brought a plethora of trade and…
15 June 2023
The Protection of Civilians (PoC) became a central norm in international peacekeeping and often rationalizes the use of force in peace interventions. The successes, failures and…
04 August 2022
Innovation ecosystems are said to vary across China. By examining all the startups operating in just one vertical – blockchain – across Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, we show…
18 July 2022
China’s emergence as a powerful challenger to the US’s and the west’s well-crystallized position atop the global hierarchy poses the question of how to co-exist peacefully. This…
14 July 2022
Russian aggression in Ukraine has spotlighted longstanding calls for reform of the United Nations (UN). Yet, so far, the world organization has struggled to gain momentum for…
21 June 2022
The longer-run trajectory of the global economy (and its politics) will be much affected by the extent to which developing countries manage to cooperate to challenge the rule-…