Experts on international relations typically approach foreign affairs using different tools than economists use. The analysts -- with their knowledge rooted in a deep study of a particular country or region -- deploy complex, interdisciplinary models with many moving parts and less formalism. Economic models of foreign policy are more likely to assume some kind of rational behavior, use more game theory and treat the capture of wealth as a significant political end.Suffice to say, economic model

June 15, 2017

Edmund Burke saw society as a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born. A failure to understand this relationship underlies a disturbing global tendency in recent decades, in which the appropriation of future wealth and resources for current consumption is increasingly disadvantaging future generations. Without a commitment to addressing this inequity, social tensions in many societies will rise sharply.Central to the issue is that the rapid

June 15, 2017

Emmanuel Macron’s one-man revolution in French and European politics continued this weekend, as he will soon be able to add a huge parliamentary majority to his cause, if the results from the first round of the French parliamentary election hold. Such an outcome appears to be very likely.Eliminating the old “right-left” divide in French politics by uniting “reformists” of the left, the right, and the center, was the challenge that Macron set for himself when he created his En Marche! movement in

June 15, 2017

Demonstrations in the streets of Russian cities and towns Monday, directed against the rule and culture of President Vladimir Putin, contradicted the image and role of him and his government in recent relations with the United States.The demonstrations were allegedly directed against Putin and the corruption and heavy-handed nature of his rule. He has been in power since 1999.They were allegedly directed by Putin’s best-known, relatively youthful opponent, Aleksei Navalny. On Monday he was promp

June 15, 2017

In this social media age, when every minutia of our lives can be voted thumbs up or down, the notion of there being “too much democracy” offends modern sensibilities. So conditioned are we to exalt individual choice that anyone who suggests certain policy decisions are best left to elected representatives (or -- gasp -- experts) risks the accusation of being a dread “elitist.”But Britain’s election last week reminds us that there is, in fact, such a thing as too much democracy.That some things s

June 14, 2017

At more than 600 meters, Shanghai Tower is the world’s second-tallest building. It looms over its neighbors -- the world’s ninth and 19th tallest buildings -- in a supercluster of supertall structures unlike any other in the world. The only problem? Finding people to work there: Only 60 percent of Shanghai Tower is rented out, and only a third of current tenants have actually occupied their leased space.In this sense, Shanghai Tower signifies the end of an era. Its plight suggests some major cha

June 14, 2017

Perhaps President Donald Trump didn’t technically obstruct justice when he fired James Comey, the FBI director who was investigating his associates and campaign. Maybe he did.Either way, Trump’s actions were scandalous. The US Congress and the American public should expect a higher standard of conduct from the American president than the bare-minimum bar of “it wasn’t technically illegal.”Comey, who at the time was the nation’s top criminal investigator, decided to take notes after his unusually

June 14, 2017

It’s amazing that 10 high school seniors smart enough to get into Harvard were also dumb enough to join a Facebook chat group called “Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens.” 　According to the Harvard Crimson and other published reports, at least 10 acceptance letters for the Class of 2021 were rescinded after admissions investigated a tip that some incoming students were exchanging disturbing memes and images in a private Facebook chat room.　One can safely assume that the 10 now-uninvited stud

June 14, 2017

Before settling in for pleasurable summer books, read Graham Allison’s “Destined for War: Can American and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?”A warning label: It’s going to scare the hell out of you.It starts with the Athenian historian’s chronicle of the conflict between Sparta and Athens in the fifth century BC as a way to tackle the larger question of whether war can be averted when an aggressive rising nation threatens a dominant power. Allison, a renowned Harvard University scholar and nationa

June 13, 2017

Harassed people of the American workplace, listen and learn.James Comey has something to teach you.Last week, a lot of us thought former FBI Director Comey’s interactions with President Donald Trump were eerily reminiscent of the kind of harassment many women experience in the workplace.Comey said he felt uneasy in meetings with Trump. Trump, he said, tried to get him alone and then asked him to do things that made him squirm.And then, when Comey appeared Thursday before the Senate Intelligence

June 13, 2017

The Conservative Party’s loss of its parliamentary majority in the United Kingdom’s snap election has proved political pundits, pollsters and other prognosticators wrong once again. And, once again, various explanations are being offered for an outcome that few expected.For example, many have pointed out that Theresa May, the Conservative prime minister, campaigned poorly and that pollsters’ models underestimated turnout by younger voters. At the same time, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the oppos

June 13, 2017

While American foreign policy has for years fixated on the conflict in Syria and the Middle East, just across the border in Mexico and throughout Central America tens of thousands of people lost their lives last year because of the conflict between drug cartels competing to deliver illicit drugs into the United States.According to a recent report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, while approximately 50,000 lives were lost in Syria last year, approximately 39,000 were killed

June 13, 2017