Democracy
Does the World Cup favor democratic or autocratic nations? I did some number crunching to find out
Hosting the FIFA World Cup games can prove a propaganda win for authoritarian nations. But the data suggests the tournament favors democracies.
Military voters were at the heart of the Supreme Court’s mail‑in ballot decision
Mail-in voting was created during the Civil War so soldiers could vote. That legacy helped shape how the Supreme Court ruled more than 160 years later.
As the US turns 250, a forgotten founding influence helps explain its current unease
Montesquieu shaped how Americans understood liberty, and his warning about a ‘tyranny of opinion’ speaks to today’s polarization.
Data center fights pit social values, democracy and capitalism against each other
Data center proposals are often local controversies with significant underlying principles at stake.
Political parties can now spend unlimited money supporting candidates, after Supreme Court overturns decades of precedent
A huge amount of money flows into campaigns in the United States. For 20 years, the Supreme Court has been loosening rules for who can contribute and how much. It just loosened the rules again.
How local communities are challenging Big Tech data centers’ noise, pollution and rising electricity bills
Local needs, political tensions and corporate power all get involved in the democratic processes by which Americans govern their communities.
As America approaches its 250th anniversary, The Federalist remains an indispensable guide to understanding the constitutional system and the nation’s enduring independence
You know how important the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were to making the United States. But do you know about The Federalist and the crucial role it played in the founding era?
The forgotten story of abolition in revolutionary France – the first emancipation
Decades before the United States, France outlawed slavery during the French Revolution – only to see it reimposed by Napoleon within a decade.
The ‘warrior ethos’ promises victory — history says it leads to defeat
Loyalty outranks expertise, and reality bends to the leader’s word. From Nazi Germany to Imperial Japan, fascist war machines collapse on the same contradictions.
For the first time in a decade, the next election could be less secure than the one preceding it
The federal task force that defends US elections has been largely absent this election cycle, and the threat-sharing hub it relied on has been defunded.