Analysis

After Boric

In his first year of government, Gabriel Boric positioned lithium, copper, and green hydrogen as catalysts for economic transformation. But the recent victory of right-wing presidential candidate José Antonio Kast places the fate of this developmentalist turn into peril.

Between Capitalism and the State-System

The relation between states and markets underpins nearly every major challenge of our time, from climate change, to war, to austerity and sovereign debt.

The Chainsaw and the Miracle

Argentina's midterm elections have given Milei a renewed mandate to slash the state, working in concert with the IMF and US Treasury.

New Dilemmas

With food prices sparking unrest in the so-called "breadbasket of the world," what are the structural trends behind their perpetual rise?

Mexico’s Big Green State

AMLO's government emphasized the importance of state-owned enterprises for reviving Mexico's energy sector. With her announced regulatory reforms, President Claudia Sheinbaum is reorienting these enterprises towards an even more ambitious purpose: decarbonization. Sheinbaum's proposals not only have the potential to transform Mexico's economy; they open a path for experimentation that can inform green transitions around the world.

A State-led Financial Empire

Since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, China has steadily expanded its role in the global financial system. Through cross-border settlement networks, controlled conduits for foreign portfolio flows, and RMB-denominated funding markets, it is incrementally wiring trade, credit, and liquidity provision into RMB-based circuits. The result is a new financial infrastructure that operates alongside, yet increasingly apart from, the dollar system.

Economic Resilience

Years of international isolation and sanctions have prompted Iran to structure its economy to survive various kinds of onslaught. Though it remains exposed to further interruption, Iran’s economy has proven itself resilient in the face of Israel’s campaign. What explains its buoyancy?

Syrian Continuity

A general finding in the study of rebel politics is that groups that come to power without a clear hegemonic position within the rebel movement are vulnerable to spoilers or coups d’etat that push the country back into civil war.

Steel Politics

Since the 1970s, steel production across the Global North has dramatically declined. But steel remains essential to industrial development—and the Green Transition. The history of steel production in Europe and the US, as well as its contemporary rise in China, suggests that the industry cannot be revived without coordinated state intervention and long term public planning.

State of Emergency

The dominance of major business groups in the Ecuador’s national politics has formed an oligarchic neoliberal model, characterized by extreme political polarization, weakened constitutional protections, and a return to indebtedness.

Great Power Antinomies

In recent months, the gradual reversal of US semi-conductor controls has triggered alarm across the national security establishment. But far from a sign of reconciliation, the move signals a transforming imperial logic: one in which American technology becomes indispensible to production and innovation around the world.

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.