Race/Ethnicity

The Personality Problem

In an age of globalization and revolutionary upheaval, grand impersonal forces might appear to be winning out. But don't discount the human factor.

BY CHRISTIAN CARYL | MARCH 7, 2012

Not-So-Super Tuesday

The real winner of the Republican primary is Barack Obama.

BY RUY TEIXEIRA | MARCH 6, 2012

Hoping Against All Hope

Tibetans are setting themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule. So is there anything the leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile can do about it?

BY SUDIP MAZUMDAR | MARCH 5, 2012

Why Washington Is the Syrian Opposition's Next Battlefront

Syria’s opposition faces an uphill battle in its efforts to win backing from U.S. policymakers.

BY CHRISTIAN CARYL | FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Waiting for Spring

If the Middle East is your yardstick, the countries of Central Asia ought to be on the verge of revolution. But don't hold your breath.

BY SCOTT RADNITZ | FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Nationality: Democrat

Democracy and identity politics aren't mutually exclusive. But don't try telling that to the Chinese Communist Party.

BY ELLEN BORK | FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Separated at Birth

Indonesia's transition to democracy can tell us a lot about the likely course of Egypt's revolution. There's good news and there's bad news.

BY JOHN T. SIDEL | FEBRUARY 15, 2012

The Strange Revolution in Bahrain, One Year On

The revolt in little Bahrain is easy to ignore. But it’s actually part of a big global story.

BY CHRISTIAN CARYL | FEBRUARY 14, 2012

No Joke

Burma's famous comedian-cum-activist explains why he can forgive but refuses to forget.

BY CHRISTIAN CARYL | FEBRUARY 7, 2012

The Slow Death of 'Asian Values'

Why the latest news from Malaysia helps to undermine authoritarianism throughout the region.

BY CHRISTIAN CARYL | JANUARY 18, 2012

Doom and Gloom

Interpreting the American public mood on the 9/11 decade.

BY SHIBLEY TELHAMI | SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

Nigeria's Terrorism Problem

Why the suicide bombing of the U.N. compound in Abuja isn't just a lone incident -- and why it could spark an ugly religious war in Africa's most populous country.

BY ALEX THURSTON | AUGUST 26, 2011

The Cultural Evolution

The baggage we carry from our ethnic and national backgrounds can keep people poor -- but it can also change, and faster than you'd think.

BY CHARLES KENNY | AUGUST 8, 2011

A Murderer's Manifesto and Me

Anders Behring Breivik, Norway's mass murderer, was a fan of my writing. Here's what I found within his perverse 1,518-page manuscript.

BY PHILLIP LONGMAN | AUGUST 1, 2011

Rise of the Radical Right

Anders Behring Breivik is not alone. In fact, Europe has many more dangerous extremists than anyone thinks.

BY JAMIE BARTLETT, JONATHAN BIRDWELL | JULY 25, 2011

Breivik's Swamp

Was the Oslo killer radicalized by what he read online?

BY TOBY ARCHER | JULY 25, 2011

Assassin Nation

After more than three decades of targeted killings, is there anyone left alive who can actually run Afghanistan?

BY EDWARD GIRARDET | JULY 18, 2011

Bashir's Choice

The brutal means that the Sudanese president has used to keep his country together have instead blown it apart in the most chaotic way possible.

BY JAMES TRAUB | JULY 8, 2011

Let's Make a Deal

The United States and the Taliban should be able to work out a compromise on Afghanistan. But will the Afghans be able to live with it?

BY JAMES TRAUB | JUNE 24, 2011

Twilight of the Nuba

Is the Sudanese regime embarking on another war of extinction?

BY DAN MORRISON | JUNE 23, 2011

Trouble in Khartoum

Everyone’s rightly worried about the future of Southern Sudan. But what if it’s the north that’s actually in the most danger?

BY REBECCA HAMILTON | JUNE 17, 2011

The Lightning Rod President

Ivory Coast’s new president has made many enemies over the years. Can he bring peace?

BY DANIEL BALINT-KURTI | APRIL 29, 2011

Out of Eden

Pre-modern lifestyles were fraught with violence, disease, and uncertainty. We should be happy that indigenous societies are increasingly leaving them behind.

BY CHARLES KENNY | APRIL 26, 2011

Death of a True Afrikaner Believer

At the end of apartheid, he founded an all-white community he believed would be a utopia in the wilderness. Twenty years later, his death reveals some unexpected paradoxes of race in South Africa.

BY EVE FAIRBANKS | MARCH 22, 2011

Understanding Libya's Michael Corleone

The international community saw Muammar's Western-educated, reform-minded son as the best hope for a freer, more democratic Libya. Did they get him wrong?

INTERVIEW BY BENJAMIN PAUKER | MARCH 7, 2011

The Secret History of Beslan

From the outside, the violence in the Caucasus looks like a religious war or an independence struggle. In this installment from a monthlong travel diary, our correspondent finds that in North Ossetia, ethnic tension adds a deadly twist.

BY TOM PARFITT | MARCH 1, 2011

Russia's Bloody Backyard

The North Caucasus, annexed by Russia in the 1800s and fiercely struggling for independence pretty much ever since, has turned into a killing field right on the edge of Europe. It may not get the headlines of Iraq or Afghanistan, but the raging Islamist insurgency here is getting increasingly deadly.

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

Let's Try This Again

Egypt could be a watershed moment for democracy promotion in the Arab world -- but only if the United States understands how it went wrong the last time.

BY JAMES TRAUB | FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Not Your Father's Cuba

What Marco Rubio and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen don't get about the new generation of Cuban-Americans.

BY ARTURO LOPEZ-LEVY | NOVEMBER 5, 2010

Romas: Europe's Wanderers

Kicked out of France and unwanted in the countries to which they are forced to return, the Roma are a part of a new Europe that everyone would rather ignore.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2010