World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

I’ve commented before on the number of protests that have occurred globally over the last year.  Each of these protests is locally based, but they are not completely independent of each other.  Increasing evidence suggests that the common thread in many of these protests is a backlash against globalization.  This possibility is consistent with much of the research done on the backlash against globalization at the beginning of the 20th century.  Concerns about income inequality and corruption seem to be the source of the backlash.  We’ll see how this unfolds.

I hope that many were able to watch the State of the Union address this evening.  It was a good example of how foreign policy is used to inspire political loyalty.  Unfortunately, foreign policy issues rarely dominate a presidential election, and this year the economy will certainly be the dominant issue in the campaign.

Political protests turn psychedelic.  This tactic would have been great in the 1960s–many more protesters would have shown up just for the show.