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  1. People walk by a new electric bus in Krakow. Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images
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    A Competitive Europe Must Be Climate-Resilient

    Ambroise Fayolle

    Extreme weather and climate-related events caused €822 billion in economic losses across the European Union between 1980 and 2024, with a quarter of the losses occurring just in the last five years. The consequences for Europe’s competitiveness and economic security are clear—and so is the appropriate response.

    touts the cost savings and economic opportunities implied by a new approach to infrastructure investment.

    Further reading

  2. Image for PS Events: Reinventing Europe
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    PS Events: Reinventing Europe

    PS editors Despite boasting world-leading universities and research institutions, robust trade relationships, a strong industrial base, and a well-established rule of law, Europe has failed to leverage its advantages in a way that would unlock its full economic potential.
  4. Worker installing a CCTV camera in Nairobi. Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
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    When Smart Cities Turn Menacing

    Wairagala Wakabi

    Uganda has embraced digital-surveillance tools in the name of improving public safety and combating terrorism, a pattern that is repeating itself across several African countries. But governments are increasingly using these technologies for political control, rather than for national security.

    highlights the problem of “function creep” in African governments’ use of foreign surveillance tech.

    Further reading

  9. Workers with an assembly line of robots in a factory. Wang Jiang/VCG via Getty Images
    2

    From AI Boom to Economic Bust

    Ian Goldin

    For generations, countries have escaped poverty by putting millions of people to work in factories and service industries. But as robots replace factory workers and AI takes over service jobs, the growth engines that have powered economic development across much of the world will be rendered obsolete.

    warns that the race for technological supremacy is fracturing societies and rules out international cooperation.

    Further reading

  10. Image for Secure your copy of <em>PS Quarterly: Slopocalypse Now</em>

    Secure your copy of PS Quarterly: Slopocalypse Now

    AI-generated content already accounts for half the articles published online, and not even digital forensics experts can tell what’s real anymore. Can those still offering a humanistic vision of online life make themselves heard over the din?

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  1. What’s Driving Persistent Inflation?

    Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan argues that concerns over the AI buildout, bond yields, and public debt cannot be divorced from supply shocks.

  2. No More Superpowers

    Carl Bildt observes that developments during the past few years have rendered the term obsolete.

  3. Building the Economy Africa Needs

    Yemi Kale promotes an agenda focused on regional integration, industrialization, and access to trade finance.

  4. Brazil Cannot Afford Bolsonaro’s Spending Cuts

    Laura Carvalho & Joseph E. Stiglitz urge the country’s voters to defeat policies that would reverse hard-won progress on growth and poverty.
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  1. People walk by a new electric bus in Krakow. Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images

    A Competitive Europe Must Be Climate-Resilient

    Oct 22, 2026 Ambroise Fayolle touts the cost savings and economic opportunities implied by a new approach to infrastructure investment.

  2. Members of the European Parliament vote during a plenary session in Strasbourg, France. Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images

    Europe Must Prepare for the Worst

    Oct 22, 2026 Janis A. Emmanouilidis urges the pro-EU camp to prepare for the far right’s efforts to hollow out the bloc from within.

  3. Indigenous person on a boat in the Amazon. Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images

    Nature Can’t Wait

    Oct 22, 2026 Mary Robinson explains why it is essential to invest in protecting 30% of the world's land and ocean by 2030.

  4. A person collects recyclable waste in Argentina amid the country’s economic crisis. Carol Smiljan/NurPhoto via Getty Images

    Argentina’s Economic Chainsaw Massacre

    Oct 22, 2026 Jeremy Adelman sees much misery in a country that is supposedly experiencing a robust, free-market recovery.

  5. Ancient Greek sculpture depicting the centaur Eurytion attempting to abduct a woman. DEA Picture Library/DeAgostini via Getty Images

    Which AI Myth Will We Embrace?

    Oct 21, 2026 Richard K. Sherwin describes the role moral imagination must play to keep the technology’s greatest potential harms in check.

Trending

  1. From AI Boom to Economic Bust

    Oct 16, 2026 Ian Goldin warns that the race for technological supremacy is fracturing societies and rules out international cooperation.

  2. Japan Needs Higher Interest Rates

    Oct 16, 2026 Koichi Hamada laments the weakness of the yen and calls for more aggressive monetary tightening.

  3. A Global Debt Crisis Is Looming

    Oct 12, 2026 Paolo Gentiloni, et al. identify reforms to prevent developing countries' refinancing difficulties from becoming insolvency crises.

  4. Trump’s Latest Gift to Putin

    Oct 14, 2026 Timothy Snyder sees the purchase of Russian diesel as a symbolic step toward an openly pro-Russian US foreign policy.

  5. Independent AI Auditing Now

    Oct 15, 2026 Angela Huyue Zhang & Yue Zhao explain why formal, objective assessments are needed to ensure safety and expose marketing hype.

OnPoint is our suite of subscriber-exclusive content. Get long-read commentaries, thematic deep dives, interviews with world leaders, and much more. Learn more.  

  1. Worker installing a CCTV camera in Nairobi. Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
    0

    When Smart Cities Turn Menacing

    Wairagala Wakabi

    Uganda has embraced digital-surveillance tools in the name of improving public safety and combating terrorism, a pattern that is repeating itself across several African countries. But governments are increasingly using these technologies for political control, rather than for national security.

    highlights the problem of “function creep” in African governments’ use of foreign surveillance tech.
  2. Workers with an assembly line of robots in a factory. Wang Jiang/VCG via Getty Images
    2

    From AI Boom to Economic Bust

    Ian Goldin

    For generations, countries have escaped poverty by putting millions of people to work in factories and service industries. But as robots replace factory workers and AI takes over service jobs, the growth engines that have powered economic development across much of the world will be rendered obsolete.

    warns that the race for technological supremacy is fracturing societies and rules out international cooperation.
  3. Peter Thiel. Gerald Matzka/Getty Images
    10

    Fukuyama, Thiel, and the Revenge of the Last Man

    Benn Steil

    Advocates of liberal democracy like Francis Fukuyama assumed that capitalism could harness private ambition by subordinating it to democratic politics. Peter Thiel has upended that premise, using wealth and technology to weaken state power and increasingly turning the West against liberal democracy.

    examines why tech moguls like Peter Thiel have turned decisively against liberal democracy.
  4. Computer chip with the EU flag on it. J Studios/Getty Images
    1

    Closing Europe’s Dynamism Deficit

    Carl Benedikt Frey identifies the roots of continental sclerosis, and explains what a successful economic model would look like.
  5. Abandoned factory in the UK. Geography Photos/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
    9

    What Killed Liberalism?

    Gene Frieda

    Governments have abandoned many of the economic ideas blamed for the populist backlash, yet support for populist parties continues to grow. This puzzle lies at the heart of two new books, both of which suggest that liberalism’s decline may outlast the economic forces that set it in motion.

    explains why neither stronger communities nor greater economic agency can turn back the populist tide.
  6. Claude by Anthropic app logo displayed on a smartphone screen. Matteo Della Torre/NurPhoto via Getty Images
    Free to read
    5

    Does Claude Have Rights?

    Mustafa Suleyman

    Unlike living beings, AIs are not moral subjects, and that is how they must remain. But a growing chorus of people argue that AIs could now be, or may soon become, conscious, and that, like other conscious beings, they may deserve rights and protections.

    worries that Anthropic is training a simulation of a moral subject that could demand freedom.

Driven by the same incentives that brought us social media and its many social and political ills, the tech industry’s pivot to generative AI has cast further doubts on the potential for online life to serve positive human ends. The question now is whether those still offering a humanistic vision of online life can make themselves heard over the din.

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Opinion that Moves

  1. Ambroise Fayolle A Competitive Europe Must Be Climate-Resilient
  2. Jeremy Adelman Argentina’s Economic Chainsaw Massacre
  3. Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan What’s Driving Persistent Inflation?
  4. Yemi Kale Building the Economy Africa Needs

  1. Janis A. Emmanouilidis Europe Must Prepare for the Worst
  2. Carl Bildt No More Superpowers
  3. Jonathan Levy A Generational Reckoning on the Streets of Paris
  4. Guillermo Ortiz Mexico Faces the Populist Tide

  1. Ana Maria Loboguerrero Unleashing Africa’s Women Agripreneurs
  2. Harris Eyre, et al. Investing in Brain Health
  3. Gordon Brown, et al. Learning to Reconcile
  4. Gordon Whitman Global Development’s Missing Ingredient

  1. Mary Robinson Nature Can’t Wait
  2. Carlos Nobre, et al. Who Will Pay to Preserve Tropical Forests?
  3. Hasrul Hanif How to Improve Global Mineral Governance
  4. Pepukaye Bardouille The Next Era of Reform Must Be About Capability

  1. Sami Mahroum Science Without Scientists?
  2. Angela Huyue Zhang, et al. Independent AI Auditing Now
  3. Danielle Keats Citron Strict Liability for AI Executives
  4. Barry Eichengreen, et al. How a Pause on Frontier AI Could Work

  1. Richard K. Sherwin Which AI Myth Will We Embrace?
  2. Gabriela Ramos The Algorithm Driving French Student Protests
  3. Carla Norrlöf The Rise of Reputation Ops
  4. Murray Hunt Human Rights and Populist Wrongs

Africa’s economic rise is a world-changing development, but the sources of its emerging strength – and lingering weaknesses – are little understood. W…

  1. Yemi Kale Building the Economy Africa Needs
  2. Adekeye Adebajo A Nobel for the Poor People’s Lawyer
  3. Ana Maria Loboguerrero Unleashing Africa’s Women Agripreneurs

Today’s media landscape is littered with landmines: open hostility from illiberal and autocratic regimes, mounting censorship in countries such as Hungary, Turkey,…

  1. Agustino Fontevecchia The Journalists’ Revolt Against AI Scraping
  2. Stig Ørskov AI Needs Trusted Journalism
  3. Kelly Stonelake Social-Media Age Bans Won’t Make Children Safer—But This Will

A selection of insightful commentaries written by female contributors on issues affecting women and girls.

  1. Ana Maria Loboguerrero Unleashing Africa’s Women Agripreneurs
  2. Crystal Simeoni Global Financial Reform that Centers African Women
  3. Caren Grown, et al. Climate Resilience Starts With Care