Weekly Review Archive

Two developments in the past week conspired to put the polarized debate over free speech and government regulation of social media in sharp focus. Last Saturday, the European Union reached a final deal on its Digital Services Act, which will hold the major social media platforms operating in the bloc responsible for removing illegal content and disinformation. And on Monday, Twitter reached a deal with Elon Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” to purchase the publicly traded platform and take it private. The EU legislation responds to the growing popular unease with the unintended effects social media has had on […]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upended the foundations of Europe’s security order, but also its economic order. The sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union and its Western partners suggest that an economic decoupling has begun. The implications of such a decoupling in the context of an integrated global economy are significant, but also murky and complex. Clearly, the war highlights a weakness in the logic that had long underpinned globalization as an economic but also a normative project: that economic interdependence among states would make the costs of conflict prohibitive. Longstanding dissatisfaction with China’s unfair trade practices, combined […]

French President Emmanuel Macron, whose reelection bid seemed to be a lock just several weeks ago, is suddenly facing a tightened race ahead of tomorrow’s first-round voting. Macron is almost certain to make it through to the second round on April 24, where he will in all likelihood face far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in a rematch of their 2017 face-off. Five years ago, Macron defeated Le Pen in a landslide, with two-thirds of the vote. This year, however, the latest polls show a much closer head-to-head contest, with Macron ahead by just several percentage points—within the margin of error—in […]

“You’re on Earth. There’s no cure for that.” It’s a testament to Samuel Beckett’s genius for making existential angst utterly comedic that, when that line is first spoken in his play, “Endgame,” audiences invariably laugh. As an observation, it takes on added resonance today, after a two-year period in which we have all been sick, not just collectively, but also often simultaneously. The climate crisis, too, contributes an additional level of meaning, in that not only is there no cure for us for being on Earth, there is also no cure for Earth for having us on it. Beckett’s portrayal […]