Archive for the 'Newsletter' Category

Paul Krugman | The New York Times | Original Article

When the financial crisis struck in 2008, many economists took comfort in at least one aspect of the situation: the best possible person, Ben Bernanke, was in place as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Bernanke was and is a fine economist. More than that, before joining the Fed, he wrote extensively, in academic studies of both the Great Depression and modern Japan, about the exact problems he would confront at the end of 2008. He argued forcefully for an aggressive response, castigating the Bank of Japan, the Fed’s counterpart, for its passivity. Presumably, the Fed under his leadership would be different.

Instead, while the Fed went to great lengths to rescue the financial system, it has done far less to rescue workers. The U.S. economy remains deeply depressed, with long-term unemployment in particular still disastrously high, a point Bernanke himself has recently emphasized. Yet the Fed isn’t taking strong action to rectify the situation. More…

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Vladislav Inozemtsev | Eurozine | Original Article

The debate on modernisation taking place in contemporary Russia at times puzzles western researchers, accustomed to a strict understanding of the term. Indeed, they may also consider Russia to be a country in which problems related to traditional industrialisation were resolved decades ago. Yet the issue of modernisation is very real and, in this short article, I will attempt to analyse it and ask whether it can be resolved in the immediately foreseeable future.

What does modernisation mean for contemporary Russia?

In my view, modernisation can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, it is understood as a purely economic and technological process, with the aim of achieving competitiveness at the global level. On the other hand, modernisation can refer to a development of social and political institutions that brings a given society closer to the ideal model represented by developed western democracies. The suggestiveness of the term can lead to inconsistencies in its use and it can be tempting to speak of modernisation, in the primary sense of the word, as industrialisation and, in a secondary sense, as liberalisation. It seems to me that this approach is mistaken: first, because in today’s world economic modernisation cannot be reduced to industrialisation alone and, second, because a consolidation of institutions is not always a foundation for liberalism. For example, the contemporary Russian economy is far more “liberal” than the quasi-socialist economies of Europe. In this way we risk getting bogged down in the usual arguments about terminology that fail to lead to any real increase in knowledge.

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Nick Fraser | The Walrus | Original Article

From the July/August 2009 Magazine

One day in early April, I passed a bizarre series of advertisements in my local London tube station. At first sight, they appeared to contrast two identical plastic-wrapped chickens, one of them profusely labelled with health warnings. They were, it turned out, political ads designed to increase turnout for the European Union parliamentary elections in June, which the EU is billing as the biggest transnational ballot in history. It seemed the most inspiring message the organization could muster was that it had enabled us to know exactly what was in our chickens.

Later that month, in Strasbourg, I watched Barack Obama address a crowd of well-behaved teenagers. He apologized for the often patronizing tone adopted by his country toward Europe, and rebuked Europeans for their anti-Americanism. He also told them about his desire to see a world without nuclear weapons. “C’est le président du monde,” a small girl said, and she wasn’t exaggerating. I couldn’t help but compare Barack and Michelle’s expansive style with the pursed-lip, pinched presence of our own leaders at the NATO summit taking place that week. In so many material aspects, especially its commitment to the mission in Afghanistan, Europe was failing to deliver. Who would speak for Europe, I asked myself. Not Italy’s grotesque Silvio, caught on camera incurring the Queen’s displeasure after attempting to attract Obama’s attention. Not the diminutive Hello! magazine president from France, with his beaky pop singer wife, nor the former chemist from eastern Germany, nor indeed our own rumpled-suited, frenzied über-geek of a prime minister.

Europe has lately come to seem like a well-furnished, slightly faded café; where the service isn’t so bad and from which, weather permitting, one can admire the passing flow. From time to time, Europeans complain about some minor, anomalous alteration to the decor, but generally we’re contented, even as we voice under our collective breath the words of Napoleon’s mother: “Pourvu que ça dure” (“Let’s just hope it lasts”). Knowing that nothing so pleasant can endure, we sit back and hope for the best, offering a minimalist response even when the world comes unglued.

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3 Quarks Daily | Original Article

Is India the next superpower? A recent article by the London School of Economics argues that it is not likely.

From the intro by Ramachandra Guha:

Superficially, India seems to have travelled a long way from the summer of 1948. Now – despite the dissensions in the borderlands, in Kashmir and the north-east – it is clear that India is and will be a single country, whose leaders shall be chosen by (and also replaced by) its people. Indians no longer fear for our existence as a sovereign nation or as a functioning democracy. What we hope for instead is a gradual enhancement of our material and political powers, and the acknowledgement of our nation as one of the most powerful and respected on earth.

But, the more things appear to change, the more they are actually the same. For today, the Indian state once more faces a challenge from left-wing extremism. The Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, has identified the Communist Party of India (Maoist), known more familiarly as the Naxalites, as the ‘greatest internal security threat‘ facing the nation. The Home Ministry lists more than 150 districts as being ‘Naxalite affected’. This is an exaggeration, for with even one single, stray incident, a State Government is moved to get a district listed under that category, so as to garner more funds from the Central treasury. Still, the Naxalites do have a considerable presence in some forty or fifty districts spread out over the central and eastern parts of the country. Their greatest gains have been among tribal communities treated with contempt and condescension by the Indian state and by the formal processes of Indian democracy.

The conventional wisdom is that the erstwhile Untouchables, or Dalits, are the social group who are most victimised in India. In fact, the tribals fare even worse. In a recent book, the demographer Arun Maharatna compared the life chances of an average Dalit with that of an average tribal. On all counts the tribals were found to be more disadvantaged. As many as 41.5 percent of Dalits live below the official poverty line; however, the proportion of poor tribal households is even higher, at 49.5 percent. One-in-six Dalits have no access to doctors or health clinics; as many as one-in-four tribals suffer from the same disability.

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Tamson Pietsch | Times Higher Education | Original Article

Across the world, higher education is increasingly characterised by talk of “internationalisation”. Taking a number of forms – from charging foreign students full-cost fees to establishing overseas campuses and offering offshore degrees – internationalisation is big business. These activities offer cash-strapped universities a way to increase their income while also advertising themselves as institutions that equip students to work in the global knowledge economy.

But to a historian of the British Empire, much of the current talk about internationalisation sounds strangely familiar. At least four of its contemporary variants can be traced back to the 19th century, when the expanding routes of British trade and empire were creating new kinds of global connections and different forms of educational entanglement. These earlier versions of university internationalisation deserve attention, for they have much to tell us about the possibilities – and the perils – of the phenomenon in the 21st century.

One of the first forms of 19th-century academic internationalisation was the establishment by Britain of universities in India. Following the publication of Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education in 1835, the creation of an anglicised Indian elite – or in Macaulay’s infamous words, “a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect” – became the official policy of the British in India.

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