David Adler

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del autor incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de septiembre de 2006. Para fechas anteriores realice una búsqueda entrecomillando su nombre.

Electric cars stand on elevator platforms inside a storage tower at a promotional facility next to the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, on Oct. 26, 2020. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

EuropaUnión EuropeaEconomía

Though they differ on a definition, the United States, Japan, and now the European Union have all in recent times embraced the need for “economic security”. Economic security is an imprecise term that refers to the shoring up of national interests from an economic perspective. While the United States and Japan have embraced industrial policy in service of this end, the EU’s approach has largely ignored it.

In June, the European Commission and the High Representative issued a communication on “an EU approach to enhance economic security” that “focuses on minimising risks arising from certain economic flows in the context of increased geopolitical tension”.…  Seguir leyendo »

The leaders of Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile meeting at a summit in Brasília, Brazil, May 2023. Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters.

MundoAmérica

In May 2023, the leaders of 12 South American countries gathered in Brasília to chart a course to regional integration. “The elements that unite us are above ideological differences”, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, said at the meeting. “We are a human, historical, cultural, economic, and commercial entity, with common needs and hopes”. Lula called on neighboring countries to rejoin and reform the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a regional body that splintered in 2019 when half its members withdrew because of partisan enmity. He concluded his speech with a raft of proposals for the body’s direction: development financing, pharmaceutical innovation, energy production, and defense coordination.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘It is this ambition to build new blocs in order to rebalance the global order that defines Lula’s vision of “multipolarity”.’ Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images

MundoAmérica

For months, a sitting president with authoritarian sympathies sowed doubt in his country’s democracy. When he lost the election by a narrow margin, his supporters led a violent march on the capital in denial of the final result. But the institutions of democracy proved robust to these attacks. And on inauguration day, the rightful winner came to power in a peaceful ceremony.

Such parallels between recent presidential elections in the United States and Brazil are striking. Outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro endorsed Donald Trump and Trump endorsed Bolsonaro in return. Joe Biden did not go so far, but was quick to recognize the victory of incoming president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over noisy claims of fraud by his opponent.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘Led by women, the convention brought together workers, Indigenous peoples and parties from across the political spectrum to draft a new constitution over the course of a year of careful deliberation.’ Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

MundoAméricaReflexionesDemocracia

“Every constitution”, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a 1789 letter to James Madison, “naturally expires at the end of 19 years”. Two centuries after its expiration date, citizens of the United States are suffering the consequences of a constitution drafted by 55 men who owned hundreds of human slaves, thousands of acres in landed estates, and millions of dollars in inherited wealth. Fundamental rights denied, foundational institutions paralyzed and existential crises ignored: these are side-effects of a legal framework that has not been meaningfully amended in over a half-century.

The US is not alone. Scores of constitutions around the world were written by dictators, colonizers and military occupiers to enshrine institutions that are undemocratic by design and unfit to cope with crises like a rapidly heating planet.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘The rapid rise of China and the US reaction it has provoked have prompted many commentators to predict a coming cold war.’ Photograph: John Lamparski/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

EuropaInternacional, , ,

On 2 March, as the number of Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s brutal invasion reached 1 million, the United Nations security council called an emergency session of the general assembly. There, 193 nations reviewed a resolution on Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine” and voted overwhelmingly to approve it: 141 votes in favor, 35 abstentions and just five votes against. Even some of Russia’s closest allies on the continent – Serbia, for example, or Hungary – voted to condemn the invasion. “The message of the general assembly is loud and clear”, said the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

What exactly is that message? In recent days, many commentators have pointed to a global map of the UN resolution to demonstrate the unity of the west and the world in taking on the Putin government.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘President Joe Biden lives up to Kennedy’s legacy and the ambitions of his Cuban embargo.’ Photograph: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images

MundoAmérica,

“There is no embargo on Cuba.” This bold claim – made by Florida senator Marco Rubio on the floor of the US Senate last July – has quickly hardened into conventional wisdom across aisles of US Congress and among Rubio’s base of support in the Cuban diaspora. The US blockade is a myth, a bogeyman for the Communist party of Cuba. “Cuba is not isolated,” Rubio said. Those who say otherwise either “don’t know what they’re talking about … or they’re liars. Those are the only two options.”

Here in Havana, though, the isolating effects of the US embargo are impossible to ignore.…  Seguir leyendo »

John Maynard Keynes with US treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau at Bretton Woods in 1944. Now is the time to mobilize. Photograph: Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

InternacionalEconomía,

The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, will step down on 1 February – three and a half years before the end of his term – in search of greener pastures. His readiness to resign from the leadership of one the two most powerful international financial institutions is a worrying omen. But it is also an important wake-up call.

The World Bank and the IMF are the last remaining columns of the Bretton Woods edifice under which capitalism experienced its golden age in the 1950s and 1960s. While that system, and the fixed exchange rate regime it relied upon, bit the dust in 1971, the two institutions continued to support global finance along purely Atlanticist lines: with Europe’s establishment choosing the IMF’s managing director and the United States selecting the head of the World Bank.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘Internationalists should go beyond the scope of existing institutions to imagine new ones’. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

InternacionalOrden Mundial

A Nationalist International is under construction. From Viktor Orbán in the north to Jair Bolsonaro in the south, Rodrigo Duterte in the east to Donald Trump in the west, a coalition of nationalist strongmen are cracking down on civil rights, scapegoating minorities and facilitating widespread corruption for their family and friends.

There is growing recognition that – to fight these forces of division – we must forge our own Progressive International movement. In the United States, Bernie Sanders has called to “unite people all over the world” to counter authoritarianism. In the United Kingdom, Jeremy Corbyn has promised to draw on “the best internationalist traditions of the labour movement”.…  Seguir leyendo »