Bergstrom (2022) finds that economic growth, as measured by the increase in national gross domestic product (GDP) per person, explains 90 per cent of the historical variation in poverty.

A common delusion is that that the region has good policies, but implementation is the problem. In reality, implementation failures reflect poor policies borne of very low domestic policymaking capacity. Too many governments in the region merely act as implementation arms of multilaterals, foreign donors, philanthropies, and other external actors. ... See more

In the midst of all of that, the Arab world is moving on. The new game in town is Saudi-Israel normalization. The two-state solution is off the table. Palestinian freedom is off the table. Washington is distracted with other issues; it’s not a priority. So I think all of those are the context in which they’re saying, “Look, right now, Palestinians ... See more

Though these categories overlap, Israeli violations of international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict in the war may be broadly grouped as follows: starvation, torture, mass executions, and the indiscriminate use of bombs, drones, and missiles.

One of the central findings from the Lobbying and Policy Change project was that the s tatus quo dominated – it was much harder for advocates inside and outside of government to successfully create a policy change than it was to pr event such change . The hurdle of the status quo is especially high in the United States because of the many vet o poi... See more

This awful past has resonated deeply with me for months as I have watched the unfolding of the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the outrageous toll that it has taken on civilians on both sides—first against Israelis, and then in vastly larger numbers against Palestinians. Dower argues, I believe convincingly, that one only arrives at a state o... See more

The first lie: seriousness is all or nothing. I often run into people who are like: “Well, I don’t feel like I’m being truly serious and I’m not living up to my values, but I also can’t burn every bridge and change everything about my life, so I guess I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, forever.”

But this is like believing that the only way to get

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The advocates of revolutionary politics, meanwhile, are reduced to melancholic apathy, their ‘pseudo activity’ taking the place of the political work of the revolution. Žižek is scathing in his critique of the ‘local stupidities’ of the ‘Left’ (scare quotes are his) that is more concerned with ideological purity than material change, making enemies... See more