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The Brexit spectacle increasingly appears to have been conceived in the spirit of traditional British holiday pantomime. It has become the longest-running, comically-absurd cliffhanger in European political history, now starring a lone hyperreal hero, Boris Johnson, a man who has far more...
We have in our midst two political leaders who possess remarkably similar characteristics. This is not just in their demeanor, but also in how they share a political perspective on the world, and what it means for global politics as populism remains on the rise and division and discord are sewn as...
As the recent furor surrounding British comedian Jo Brand’s comments on the BBC Radio 4 Heresy program attest, there is very little clarity about what does — and, importantly, what does not — constitute hate speech. In what was clearly a joke, Brand asked why anyone would bother throwing a...
All eyes are focused these days on Boris Johnson, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom. But that’s not the most important news this month out of Britain. The Labor Party has finally come around to opposing the country’s exit from the European Union, though it’s possibly a case of...
In academia, we seem to have a fondness for the trope of the “wave” and “wave theory.” Samuel Huntington gave us the waves of democratization — a process of global, though asymmetrical, shift from authoritarian and oligarchic to democratic forms of government and state institutions....
The history of England and indeed the United Kingdom can be summed up as a ding-dong battle between cavaliers and roundheads. Like Gordon Brown, Theresa May is a roundhead. Both are children of men of the church. They work hard, find it hard to delegate and are not exactly the life of the party....
The United Kingdom, or at least the majority of the 160,000 Conservative Party voters who preferred him to Jeremy Hunt, prepares to welcome Boris Johnson as its shiny new prime minister, ready to tackle Britain's monumental problems. Sarah Lyall in The New York Times reminds her Americans readers...
The Republic of Ireland has been an enthusiastic member of the European Union since 1973, having both gained and given so much from being part of the EU. In the toxic mayhem of Brexit Britain, one question is perhaps more confounding than most, namely how did the Irish backstop issue emerge as a...
Boris Johnson, the former UK foreign secretary who is expected to replace Prime Minister Theresa May, earned his right to reign over the presumably final act of Brexit by becoming a media superstar. Adept at multiple roles to keep his audience entertained, in a recent performance he even donned the...
As Theresa May’s resignation becomes official, Donald Trump encourages her to “stick around” for a “great” trade deal. US President Donald Trump, like the pussycat in the nursery rhyme, has “been to London to visit the queen.” He even visited another female leader who, under normal...
In the 2019 European Parliament elections, populist radical-right parties have further increased their vote shares. Academic scholarship and media coverage of the populist radical right has expanded considerably in the past few years, due to its rising prominence in global politics. In the 2019...
