World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Cultural diversity seems to be an issue in polities all over the planet.  Politicians are raising the specter of disloyal “outsiders”, a term that is ambiguous and certainly misleading.  Immigration concerns are only the tip of the iceberg–questions are being raised about the authenticity of citizens who believe in a specific religion or who speak a different language.  In a globalized world, these types of distinctions are meaningless to a discussion of what it means to be a citizen.  The range of attitudes toward “others” is quite striking across different cultures.

José Manuel Barroso was the President of the European Commission but was recently appointed to be a non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs.  In his new capacity, Barroso will be advising Goldman Sachs on the possibilities for investments in Europe, topics about which he may have had exclusive and possibly confidential information in his prior role.  The conflict of interest is apparent to many, including the Ombudsman of the European Union.  While no laws were broken, it seems clear that this incident is but the most recent example of the revolving door between politics and powerful private economic interests.

Cyberwarfare is only dimly understood as it is just a recent addition to the arsenal of states.  We know very little about the technical capabilities of adversaries and even less about the vulnerabilities of incredibly complex societies.  The evidence about recent Russian hacking of various election sites in the US is one example of how mysterious the process is.  Even though there appears to be little doubt that the hackers reside in Russia, we do not know if they are operating under orders from the government.  We also have no idea of the purpose of the hacking.  One possibility, which is actually a lethal blow to the idea of representative democracy, is that the hackers simply want the American people to mistrust the outcome of elections.  If people cannot be certain that the election results are valid, then the principle of governance itself is open to question.