Analysis

The State and Software Capital

The Aadhaar digital identification project was launched in 2009 with the promise of eradicating corruption. Over 1.3 billion Indians today hold Aadhaar numbers, making it the world’s largest biometric ID program. Aadhaar has transformed not only state-citizen relations, but also capital-consumer relations, reflecting a new alignment between the software capital industry and India’s governing party.

Bitcoin under Bukele

Earlier this year, El Salvador quietly put an end to its infamous “Bitcoin experiment.” In an economy dependent on remittances from the US, the project promoted the adoption of crytocurrencies under a financial inclusion framework. But it was ultimately unable to resolve the dependent structure of the Salvadoran economy.

New Triangular Relations

The confrontation between the two largest global economies leaves Mexico in a fragile and complex triangular relation.

The Anti-Climate Common Sense

In all its forms, the Trump assault on climate policy aims to convince Americans that climate action will make them worse off, and, in doing so, to blow up the painstakingly assembled coalitions that made US climate action possible. The undermining of both American confidence in climate action and its coalitional foundations risks locking in self-propelling negative feedback loops. Finding a way forward requires understanding how consensus on climate action was forged, and how both the coalitions of interest and the belief in a carbon constrained future are being disassembled by an anti-climate common sense.

The Paradox of Reform

Why does the flagship reform of Petro’s progressive government adopt a typically neoliberal architecture for social welfare?

An Environment for Business

Carbon markets—purported pricing of the social costs of emissions—have been for decades a favored mitigation strategy in global climate governance. There is clear evidence that markets and carbon taxes have failed to price emissions in line with the climate mitigation goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

Loosening the Markets

Rather than new housing driving down market rents, development in the “affordable housing” market replaces below-market units with market-rate rentals. With market rents unchanged, “filtering” tenants by price most reliably excludes them from the city altogether.

Adding Value

Mortgage insurance has traditionally been the method the federal government has used to induce investment in owner-occupied housing. But for multifamily rentals, the history of mortgage-insurance programs shows the costs of relying on profit incentives for expanding the housing supply.

Mining After Apartheid

The mining industry has long been considered the fulcrum not only of South Africa’s economy, but of its social and racial order as well. With the discovery of gold in 1886, the mineral revolution turned the disparate colonies under Boer and British rule into the beating heart of the global economy, drawing in black and white workers from across the world and developing new forms of racial labor.

From Domination to Extermination

Since its founding, Israel’s market for weapons has developed in tandem with its war objectives. The institutionalized lack of discipline that characterizes Israel’s campaign of annihilation in Gaza represents another strategic shift in Israel’s privatized arms industry: an increase in domestic weapons consumption, a shift from high-tech equipment to low-tech arms, and artillery designed to accommodate smaller, more ideologically driven units over precise coordination and discipline. While overwhelmingly dependent on imported weapons, mainly from the US, Israeli weapons manufacturing has undergone significant changes in the aftermath of October 7.

Growing Pains

How can a Sánchez administration that enacts a successful progressive agenda—and a PSOE party that retains and even increases its share of voters while handling a succession of unprecedented crises—become so fragile electorally? To grasp the extent of this vulnerability, it is necessary to understand the limits of Spain’s new and old growth models, and the EU’s shifting security and macroeconomic priorities.

Coordinating Tamil Nadu

Amid India’s grand ambitions for manufacturing growth, Tamil Nadu stands out as an outlier. The state ranks first in the number of factories in the country and accounts for one out of every seven manufacturing jobs in the country. Tamil Nadu’s transformation into a manufacturing powerhouse speaks to the importance of coordination mechanisms in industrial policy.

How Mexico Doubled the Minimum Wage

The minimum wage in Mexico has more than doubled in real terms over the last six years. This is no small feat, especially if we take into account that the policy neither led to feared job losses nor price increases. How did Mexico manage to accomplish this? The answer lies in the monopsonistic nature of Mexico’s economy, and the skewed balance of power between employers and labor.

Lula’s Fiscal Cage

Among the factors securing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victorious return to power in the 2022 Brazilian presidential elections, the most important was the promise to increase government spending. But two years later, disputes over the public budget already show that through the new rule the progressive fiscal agenda that brought Lula back to power has shot itself in the foot.

Military Unification?

The institutionalization of European defense policy has navigated tenuous terms since the Treaty of Rome and the formation of the EU. Concerns over national sovereignty have typically stood in the way of a coherent supranational industrial policy and effective defense coordination, leading to redundancies in both defense contracting and the common market. Today, faced with the pressures of the Ukraine war in the east and Trump's America First policies in the west, the EU is making a bid to overcome its paradoxical status quo through coordinated defense spending.

Rebuilding the Kingdom

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Vision 2030 promises to transform the oil power’s economy and society. The plan has prompted an enormous wave on construction—in just a few years, Saudi Arabia is poised to host the largest construction market in the world. This massive project has significant implications for class relations, financial markets, and Saudi Arabia’s place in the world.

After Seville 

The fourth UN Financing for Development conference, which concluded in Seville earlier this month, was a high-stakes event. The climate crisis is accelerating while climate commitments are weakening; official development assistance is shrinking while debt service is eviscerating poor countries’ education and health budgets. The negotiated outcome from the conference, known as the “Seville Compromiso,” is a mixed bag.

Fentanyl, Avocados, and Tariffs

In 2022, the US accounted for 98.8 percent of reported global seizures of non-prescription fentanyl. Supply-focused policies over the last few years have only intensified the violence associated with the trade. As fentanyl production has shifted from China to Mexico, the drug remains central to reignited geopolitical tensions in North America.

Rearming Europe

The main justification for the EU’s recent dramatic reorientation toward defense is the proliferation of threats to European security emerging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But rather than defense or growth, ReArm Europe aims to enhance Europe’s geopolitical power and prestige within a volatile international order.

Technolatinas

The past decade has seen the proliferation of new consumer-oriented technology companies across Latin America. Yet despite their significant market growth, these “technolatinas” remain largely dependent on the digital infrastructures owned and operated by companies like Google, Amazon, and Alibaba. This has produced profound technological and market asymmetries that ultimately reinforce the longstanding economic power imbalances between the North and South.