Global Trends

January 2013
The Governance Gap
by Joshua Lustig and Alan Sorensen
Globalization, slowed by advanced economies’ malaise, is still outpacing efforts to manage its risks and byproducts. Better multilateral coordination is needed to narrow the gap.

January 2013
Why the World Should Worry About Europe’s Disarray
by Jan Zielonka
“International politics based on law and norms has benefited European countries, and there is no reason to assume that other regions cannot benefit from it too.”

January 2013
The Inequality Challenge
by Uri Dadush and Kemal Dervis
“Sustaining the transformational force of technology and globalization, . . . while mitigating their polarizing effect within countries, is likely to prove one of the twenty-first century’s great challenges.”

January 2013
The Mixed News on Poverty
by Anirudh Krishna
“To make progress toward moving a majority of the world’s population into better circumstances, we must adopt a more nuanced view of what constitutes poverty.”

January 2013
The Growing Threat of Maritime Conflict
by Michael T. Klare
“What makes these disputes so dangerous . . . is the apparent willingness of many claimants to employ military means in demarking their offshore territories and demonstrating their resolve to keep them.”

January 2013
Climate Change and Food Security
by Bruce McCarl, Mario A. Fernandez, Jason P.H. Jones and Marta Wlodarz
“The dual forces of population growth and climate change will exacerbate pressures on land use, water access, and food security.”

January 2013
Books: Leagues of Nations
by Joshua Lustig
A new book traces the fitful evolution of international order and institutions from the Congress of Vienna to the advent of humanitarian interventions.

January 2013
The Month in Review
by the editors of Current History
An international chronology of events in November 2012, country by country, day by day.

January 2013
A Statistical Snapshot of the World
by the editors of Current History
Charts

January 2012
Global Progress Report, 2012
by the editors of Current History
Arabs want freedom; the West is hardly making democracy look good. Fortunately, liberty is a universal ideal, developing nations’ economies are growing, and much of America’s lamented decline is relative or reversible.

January 2012
Is the Labor Market Global?
by Uri Dadush and William Shaw
“International wage convergence should not be read as a zero sum game, in which gains for laborers in developing countries are losses for workers in advanced countries.”

January 2012
Arab Revolts Upend Old Assumptions
by Augustus Richard Norton
“This is a period laden with potential for the growth of freedom, but also heavy with risks and challenges for the United States.”

January 2012
America’s Outmoded Security Strategy
by David B. Kanin and Steven E. Meyer
"The United States will have to get used to others saying ‘no’ when Americans attempt to ‘lead’ them.”

January 2012
The End of Easy Everything
by Michael T. Klare
“The transition from an easy to a tough resource era will come at a high price.”

January 2012
Destructive Creation and the New World Disorder
by Paul Harris and Daniel Sarewitz
“To promote innovation through scientific and technological advance is also to promote social change—often radical social change.”

January 2012
Why the World Is More Peaceful
by Steven Pinker
“On top of all the benefits that modernity has brought us in health, experience, and knowledge, we can add its role in the reduction of violence.”

January 2012
The Month in Review
by the editors of Current History
An international chronology of events in November 2011, country by country, day by day.

January 2012
A Statistical Snapshot of the World
by The editors of Current History
Charts

January 2011
Globalization and the Problem of Evil
by Alan Sorensen
Reconciling a belief in progress with the past year’s blows to liberal institutions, economic integration, and international security is challenging but hardly impossible.

January 2011
Gazing Across the Divides
by Lucien Crowder
Global economic trends at the start of the new year suggest fundamentally diverging prospects for rich nations (not promising) and developing countries (considerably better).