Democracy and Institutions

BY ALI WYNE There are two ways for those of us who supported Hillary Clinton’s campaign to react to Donald Trump’s victory: we can scream to high heaven, steeping ourselves in a toxic brew of anger and despair; or we can attempt to understand why he won and consider what we might have done differently. […]

BY CLAIRE CHAUMONT I consider myself a fairly engaged citizen. I have voted in all major French elections. I have demonstrated several times for causes I valued. I have participated in political debates, conferences, and forums. I am a Political Science major after all. But I have never joined any organized political action. Rather, I […]

BY VANESSA CALDER It’s the day of the 2016 presidential election, and only a matter of hours before the next President of the United States is revealed. There’s not a phone call left to be made, or a door left to be knocked on in pursuit of our favored candidate. Instead, there’s only a quiet […]

BY AROHI SHARMA At 5:52 PM Eastern Time on Thursday, November 3, I put down the phone with the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office, devastated. After spending more than forty minutes waiting for someone to answer my call, I was told that the registrar’s office had not received my vote-by-mail application. I mailed my application […]

BY LISA FEIERMAN When Madeleine Albright arrived at the Democratic National Convention to see Hillary Clinton accept her party’s presidential nomination, she dressed for the occasion: She wore a brooch made of shattered glass to symbolize the historic nature of her friend’s achievement—putting “the biggest crack in the glass ceiling yet,” as Clinton said. The […]

A month has passed since the majority of Colombians voted ‘No’ in a national plebiscite on the peace agreement that the Colombian government had signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Cartagena (50.21% -6.43 million votes- to 49,78% -6.38 million votes-). That night, President Juan Manuel Santos addressed the country on TV […]

BY MELISSA BENDER I was a 19 year-old college sophomore in November 2008. I had never voted before, let alone organized my classmates around anything bigger than the boundaries of our campus. But the tension between my civic duty as a voter and my academic duty as a college student was called into question, and […]

BY JILLIAN RAFFERTY Since August, I’ve travelled to New Hampshire to canvass for the Democratic Party half a dozen times. I’ve knocked on doors in Rye, in Nashua, and in Londonderry. I’ve spoken to folks from across the political spectrum, from age 19 to 86. From all those conversations, no voter left a deeper impression […]

BY SEBASTIAN LANGER Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) announced it’s 2017 election budget: 20 million Euro (around $22.1 million) on October 21. This is not the full sum needed for the campaign—every district’s candidate has to raise another 6,000 to 10,000 Euro for his or her personal campaigning. But that’s all. […]

Embed from Getty Images “Turkey is at a crossroads!” has become the rallying cry for commentators as the country grapples with terrorism, a coup attempt, and a reshaping of its domestic and international stances. The cliché has long described Turkey as a country straddling two continents, torn between East and West – its imperial history tied to […]

Throughout his campaign for president of the United States, Republican nominee Donald Trump has time and time again denigrated Muslim communities living on American soil and abroad. Trump’s critics have underscored how promoting the prejudicial treatment of Muslims only helps to strengthen anti-American Islamist organizations. By targeting Muslims, the arguments go, Trump inadvertently validates claims made […]

BY ALEXANDER SMITH Gone are the days of American criminals like Al Capone, John Gotti, and Bonnie and Clyde. Recent prosecutorial practices of US regulatory agencies suggest that modern America now confronts an entirely new class of “criminal.” They are listed on national stock exchanges, occupy flashy corporate headquarters, and are run by individuals adorned […]