Business

A Break for Coffee

What's next for the coffee industry?

BY JORGE RAMIREZ-VALLEJO | SEPTEMBER 1, 2002

China's Car Bomb

SEPTEMBER 1, 2002

Bidding for .org

BY AMY L. KOVAC | SEPTEMBER 1, 2002

One Boardroom Fits All?

BY MARCO BECHT, J. BRADFORD DELONG | JULY 1, 2002

Reforming Russia's Tycoons

Something happened on the way to the fire sale of Russia's vast natural resources. In the wake of the Soviet collapse, new Russian conglomerates -- not bigger, more experienced Western firms -- unexpectedly came out on top. Now Russia's young captains of industry are poised to expand their global reach. But their success depends on how quickly they can abandon the shady business practices on which their empires were built.

BY MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT | MAY 1, 2002

Business Versus Terror

America's best weapons in the war on terrorism will not be found in some musty Pentagon basement or arms manufacturer's warehouse. Rather, they will be found in the briefcases of corporate CEOs and venture capitalists and the cubicles of high-tech start-ups. These nimble private-sector players can deploy innovative technologies and unlimited financing to fortify U.S. cities, battle cyberthreats, track the movements of terrorists, and disarm biological weapons -- if only Washington has sense enough to let them.

BY DAVID J. ROTHKOPF | MAY 1, 2002

Think Again: Tobacco

For tobacco control advocates, the tobacco industry is public health enemy number one: It sells a commodity that will kill 500 million of the 6 billion people living today. For governments, tobacco is both a health threat and a powerful economic force that annually generates hundreds of billions of dollars in sales and billions more in tax revenues. That clash of interests fuels a debate ensnarling everything from farm subsidies and export controls to healthcare spending, taxation, law enforcement, and free speech.

BY KENNETH E. WARNER | MAY 1, 2002

Should LDCs Love MNCs?

BY MICHAEL SANTORO | JANUARY 1, 2002

The Internet Under Siege

Who owns the Internet? Until recently, nobody. That’s because, although the Internet was "Made in the U.S.A.," its unique design transformed it into a resource for innovation that anyone in the world could use. Today, however, courts and corporations are attempting to wall off portions of cyberspace. In so doing, they are destroying the Internet's potential to foster democracy and economic growth worldwide.

BY LAWRENCE LESSIG | NOVEMBER 1, 2001

Vox Americani

What do Americans want? The U.S. public's view of the world has long been a study in what seem like maddening contradictions, at times both altruistic and paranoid, protectionist and entrepreneurial, and isolationist and multilateralist. Like many other analysts, FP's editors have worn deep furrows into our brows trying to discern how Americans see the world and their place in it. So we invited Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland and author of several groundbreaking studies of U.S. public opinion, to "interview" the American people on the most pressing global issues of the day. He created a composite of average Americans -- a virtual John/Jane Q. Public -- derived from the majority positions in extensive polling data and using the kind of language he commonly hears in focus groups. (An annotated version of this interview can be found at www.foreignpolicy.com with footnotes citing poll questions and data.) As it turns out, Americans defy simple labels, largely because they refuse to submit to simplistic choices.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2001

Grading Companies

JULY 1, 2001

The NGO-Industrial Complex

A new global activism is shaming the world's top companies into enacting codes of conduct and opening their Third World factories for inspection. But before you run a victory lap in your new sweatshop-free sneakers, ask yourself: Do these voluntary arrangements truly help workers and the environment, or do they merely weaken local governments while adding more green to the corporate bottom line?

BY GARY GEREFFI, RONIE GARCIA-JOHNSON, ERIKA SASSER | JULY 1, 2001

Drilling for Common Ground

BY BENNETT FREEMAN | JULY 1, 2001

Big Oil's To-Do List

Global Witness, an NGO based in the United Kingdom, published these recommendations on how companies operating in Angola could help improve the situation there.

JULY 1, 2001

Reluctant Missionaries

Can't shut down Big Oil? Then browbeat companies like Shell and ExxonMobil into preaching the gospel of human rights and democracy to their developing-world hosts. As appealing as this strategy seems to global do-gooders, it won't work. Not only are oil companies unsuited for the job of turning the world’s most difficult neighborhoods into thriving market democracies, they’re increasingly adept at passing the buck of reform to others.

BY MARINA OTTAWAY | JULY 1, 2001

Think Again: Money Laundering

From Moscow to Buenos Aires, money laundering scandals sap economies and destabilize governments. Policymakers blame crime cartels, tax havens, and new techniques like cyberlaundering. But dirty money long predates such influences. Without unified rules governing global finance, outlaws will always exploit disparate legal systems to stash the proceeds of their crimes.

BY NIGEL MORRIS-COTTERILL | MAY 1, 2001

New Economy, Old Politics

Why libertarian dot-coms must learn to love multilateral organizations.

BY MOISÉS NAÍM | JANUARY 1, 2001