The Politics of Sound

Words have never been enough.  While the brain can process thousands of feelings and sensations every minute, spoken language will forever be a bottleneck that retards the sharing or expression of sensations from one person to the next.  Think about it – how often are you left struggling to relay a thought to a colleague […]

A New Beginning: Balancing Values and Interests in Obama’s Foreign Policy

Promoting and defending human rights has long challenged governments and policymakers. Some hardly bother and others give it their all. All governments balance their interests with their values. The United States has wavered back and forth between vocal and aggressive “democracy promotion” and realpolitik, often within the same administration. Most recent administrations have agreed on […]

Fields Without Fences? Negotiating the Net

In the 1960s, the Cold War was in full swing.  The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had launched the first artificial satellite into space, giving their country the advantage in space over its major rival, the United States.  For the first time, the threat of weapons, known as intercontinental ballistic missiles, hung over the […]

What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East?

In What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East, author Brian Whittaker has taken an unconventional and ambitious look into authoritarianism what is not so much the Middle East but the Arab world. The book asks: why is political order in so many Arab countries dysfunctional; why does political and religious violence spring from the region […]