Long before Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet planners and economists engaged in wide-ranging debates about economic reform. But they never seriously considered the option of a genuinely participatory, democratic model of socialism that would empower workers.
The world’s oldest president, Cameroon’s Paul Biya, is running for yet another term. Biya’s autocratic rule stems directly from a brutal colonial war France waged in the 1950s and ’60s while keeping it virtually hidden from the outside world.
Bolivia’s election of the center-right Rodrigo Paz Pereira marks the end of the MAS’s nearly 20-year rule. As MAS self-destructed, Paz appealed to an urban middle class that expanded as the Left achieved historic reductions in poverty and social inequality.
Sports are one of the few spaces in American society genuinely guided by ideas of fairness and meritocracy. But AAU basketball, with its pay-to-play leagues and corporate sponsorships, is ruining this experience for millions of young people.
Authoritarian leaders like to rally their populations against external threats, and Donald Trump has decided that Venezuela is a perfect candidate. So far, though, the public isn’t buying it.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise is the biggest radical-left force in Europe. Liberal opinion seethes against all aspects of the movement — but Mélenchon’s comrades haven’t been thrown off course.
Iran has long held that conflict with Israel can be managed by limiting its retaliation within clearly defined parameters. But through its preemptive attack, Israel has revealed that it is not a rational actor and upended the rules of war.
The TikTok ban saga perfectly captures both Republican cynicism and Democratic incompetence: Trump takes credit for “saving” an app his administration originally moved to ban, while Democrats fumble another opportunity to connect with young people.
In October’s election, Cameroon’s 92-year-old president, Paul Biya, retained his four-decade-long grip on power. Electoral fraud and repression trap Cameroon in a system inherited from colonization, designed to serve foreign interests and a small elite.
There’s a reason why urban housing developments and suburban subdivisions can seem threatening and unwelcoming to outsiders: they’re planned that way, in order to “design out crime.”