Stories Archive | Page 2 of 87

Analyses

For decades, Latin America’s authoritarian regimes were seen as a right-wing phenomenon, with Cuba as the lone exception — a dictatorship born not from a betrayal of democracy, but of revolution. As Washington’s embargo returns to the headlines, this piece asks what that framing has long obscured: that Cuba has never had just one embargo, but two.

International Affairs
The End of the Hezbollah Ambiguity? Lebanon’s Negotiating Moment
Riccardo Cristiano 25 June 2026

Small, economically hollowed out by years of devastating crisis and torn apart by a war that is slowly erasing its southern flank, Lebanon has never mattered more to the world than it does right now. With only weeks left to settle their accounts, the Americans and Iranians opened their Swiss negotiations with a bitter, hours-long quarrel—over Lebanon. Only once Iran had extracted something on the Lebanese front—a tacit acknowledgment of its role as the country’s patron—did the two sides find a way to get to the matters that were really theirs to discuss. Tehran clearly sees Lebanon as an extension of itself: proof of its regional reach, recognition of which it is determined to secure—and to some degree, it has.
Books
Between Iran and the West: The Global Making of Marjane Satrapi
Pegah Zohouri 24 June 2026

In an age increasingly dominated by simplified narratives about identity and geopolitics, Satrapi insisted on complexity. She reminded readers that a people is never identical to its government, just as a life can never be reduced to a political category. Instead, she sought to humanize Iranians and reclaim the complexity of everyday life. That is why her work continues to resonate today: not because it explains Iran once and for all, but because it demonstrates how individual lives can illuminate history better than ideological certainties ever could. In a world increasingly drawn to black-and-white visions of politics and identity, the artist who drew almost exclusively in black and white devoted her life to revealing the shades of grey.
Human Rights
An International Appeal for the Release of Rached Ghannouchi
24 June 2026
Migrations
After Crimea: The New Lives of the Crimean Tatar Diaspora in Turkey
Ilaria Romano 11 June 2026

Turkey is home to several Crimean Tatar communities and cultural centers capable of connecting every newcomer with the wider diaspora. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the networking efforts carried out not only in Ankara but also in other Turkish cities became essential for welcoming new arrivals, not merely for maintaining ties with the homeland and preserving cultural identity.
Migrations
Crimean Tatars: The Migrations of a People United in Diaspora
Ilaria Romano 10 June 2026

The 1944 deportation left an indelible mark on the history of the Crimean Tatars. It is estimated that at least 200,000 people were forced to leave within just two days, while a policy of erasing traces of the Crimean Tatar presence was launched across the peninsula, from replacing the original names of towns and villages with Russian ones to destroying schools, libraries, and mosques.
Arjun Appadurai: The University Has Become a School of Self-Branding
Giancarlo Bosetti 14 May 2026
Society
Chris Higgins: Pursuing an Ethos, Not Just a Curriculum
Giancarlo Bosetti , Alessandra Tommasi 13 May 2026
Society
Louise Richardson: The Principles of Pluralism
and Inclusion Have Been Betrayed
Giancarlo Bosetti , Jonathan Laurence 13 May 2026
Society
Craig Calhoun on Universities: What Has Become of Their Civic Mission?
Giancarlo Bosetti , Alessandra Tommasi 11 May 2026
International Affairs
Gaza Stuck in a Limbo of Trump’s New Personalist Global Order
Claudia De Martino 31 March 2026

In an article published in January in Foreign Affairs, two researchers analyze the extreme volatility of the current global order, arguing that in the age of personalist politics key foreign policy decisions—especially those involving great powers and nuclear-armed states—depend largely on the whims and obsessions of individual leaders, rather than on stable institutions or long-term strategies. In this new global order, instability is the norm, because decisions no longer correspond to long-term strategic expectations and interests, but are the result of impulsive choices unconstrained by institutional considerations and commitments. This dynamic is illustrated by what is not happening in Gaza, which has officially entered the ‘phase two’ of the twenty-point peace plan launched by US President Donald Trump—a plan that was supposed to ensure the Strip’s demilitarization, a technocratic government, and the long-awaited beginning of reconstruction.