All Articles
The Debt Offensive: Focusing on Entitlements
Negative responses to austerity demonstrate the key danger of entitlement programs in democratic societies: Once they are instated or augmented, they are extremely difficult to diminish or abolish.
Bubba’s Playbook
Mark Twain was probably right when he said that history doesn’t repeat itself; it rhymes. But given the points of similarity that do exist, Obama should expect the worst and make use of the lessons of 1994 to understand how he can thrive with a Republican-controlled Congress.
Public Enemies
Three years ago, 17-year-old Ogün Samast entered the upscale Sisli district of Istanbul, Turkey, wearing a white beret and carrying a gun. He turned onto the street of Sebat Sokak, reached the publishing house of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, and waited. Moments later, when the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Hrant Dink stepped out, Samast shot him dead in broad daylight.
‘Twas the Night Before Midterms
It was misty that Monday night. Fog hung thick over the Potomac. There was nary a sound for miles. The noise of reporters, camera flashes and Greek choruses had quieted. Streetlights changed color for no one, except perhaps the odd lobbyist scurrying into his trashcan. After all the speculating and graphing and rebranding and redistricting and speaking and speaking and speaking, the city was asleep. All were resting.All, except for one man.
Mark Rudd on the Weather Underground
A terrorist to some and an icon of anti-war activism to others, Mark Rudd, the leader of Columbia’s infamous 1968 protests, sits down with CPR to reflect on the nature of political demonstration and militant action.
Robert Jervis Waxes Pessimistic on Afghanistan
A conversation with Columbia University's Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs and former president of the American Political Science Association on withdrawal and recovery in Afghanistan.
Rebiya Kadeer -- Face of the Uighurs
The Columbia Political Review has joined with other college political publications to form the Alliance of Collegiate Editors (ACE), hoping to generate cross-campus dialogue on political issues. Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent Uighur rights activist currently living in exile in the U.S., has agreed to answer some of our questions. You can read Ms. Kadeer's biography, including information on her involvement in the July 2009 unrest in Urumchi, in the New York Times here. For background information on Xinjiang/East Turkmenistan, and the Uighurs, click here.
Editor's Note
As the final issue of CPR was going to press, volcanic ash was still spewing out of the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland and bringing much of our globalized world to a relative standstill. When I first heard the news, I couldn’t help but laugh. The idea of ash covering huge swathes of land was simply ludicrous to me.
Marriage of Identities
During the winter break between my two semesters abroad at Tsinghua University in Beijing, I made the trek to Xiaoshan, an administrative district of Hangzhou, one of southern China’s biggest cities. The occasion for this visit to Xiaoshan was a family member’s wedding. My grandmother’s cousin’s daughter, Chen Xingmei, was getting married to a young man, Chen Xingjiang, whom she met through work and with whom, by chance, she shares two of three characters in her name.
A Modern Look at the American Family
In a recent episode of ABC’s new primetime hit comedy Modern Family, audiences were treated to a familiar scenario. Three of the show’s characters—Jay Pritchett, his thirty-something son, Mitchell Pritchett, and the former’s preteen stepson, Manny—go on a trip to the great outdoors for some stargazing and male bonding, but unexpected events soon lead the evening hilariously awry.
Marx Brothers
“The system must be completely overhauled,” said Nicolas Sarkozy in October 2008, as the world economy was in the midst of a startling decline. A few months later the cover of Newsweek announced “We Are Socialists Now.” These were just two signs of the surprisingly mainstream consensus that the global financial crisis had marked a significant rupture with traditional economics and politics.
The Trouble with Quotas
Historically, international legislation on the topic of gender equality has often sparked controversy and critical dismissal. The latest version of the debate on women’s rights has focused on the increasing prevalence of quotas for women leaders in both politics and business. Despite the obvious irony, it comes as no surprise that seven Indian MPs harassed Vice President Hamid Ansari on March 8, International Women’s Day, tearing up and throwing copies of the Women’s Reservation Bill at him while shouting anti-bill slogans.