By Andy Liu (HMC ‘23) For nearly eighty years, control of the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) has been passed back and forth between two establishment parties – the center-right Fine Gael, the party of current Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, and the centrist Fianna Fáil. On February 8, Irish voters swung in a third direction, giving…
Aditya Bhalla (PO ’23) Last week’s Iowa caucus was supposed to be the emphatic beginning of a widely anticipated electoral cycle. However, as 25 candidates narrowed to a handful of legitimate contenders for the Democratic Party nomination, the caucuses went awry, as precincts had yet to report results late into the night. Final results from…
Nathan Tran (PO ‘23) In 2017, Gallup found that 45% of Americans — including 68% of Republicans and 20% of Democrats — believe that the government excessively regulates business and industry. In contrast, only 29% think that there is just the right amount of regulation, while a relatively paltry 23% desire more. This is probably…
Andy Liu (HMC ‘23) Last Sunday night, five full days after results were expected, the controversial Iowa caucuses finally produced a winner, as Pete Buttigieg narrowly edged out Sen. Bernie Sanders in state delegate equivalents. While the results are still subject to change, the public opinion of Iowa as an unmitigated disaster will not. Historic…
By Rafael Santa Maria (PO ’20) A pending Supreme Court case, County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, could determine the future of the Clean Water Act of 1972 (CWA), a federal law that regulates pollution and quality standards for surface waters in the US. In particular, a potential loophole in the CWA’s guidelines could…
Arletta Gorecka (PhD Candidate, University of Strathclyde) Van Gend en Loos (1963), in its famous passage, claimed that EU constitutional law “constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields, and the subjects of which comprise not only EU member…
By Christopher Tan (PZ ’21) Xi Jinping could have not have imagined a worse start to the Lunar New Year. A sudden outbreak of viral pneumonia from Wuhan has sent the country into lockdown and has left world healthcare services scrambling to stem its spread. This latest crisis is a cruel ending to a year…
Rowan McGarry-Williams (PO ’21) It is comforting to think of progress as linear and inevitable, with the present a constant process of improvement over the past. However, the truth of history is that it is full of contingencies and reversals, fits and starts. In the United States, the clearest example of history’s impartiality towards progress…
By Lucie Abele PO ’22 With increasingly unpredictable weather patterns across the globe, from raging wildfires in California and Australia to droughts and tropical storms, climate is among the political issues that matter most to voters as of December 2019. The climate policies of each of six potential presidential candidates, selected from the frontrunners of…
By Lucie Abele PO ’22 As of December 2019, foreign policy was among the political issues that matter most to voters. In the face global issues such as the trade war with China and rising tensions with Iran, candidates’ foreign policies are extremely relevant. The foreign policies of each of six potential presidential candidates, selected…