Observations on Russian Politics from a Moscow Bookstore

• 31 janvier 2012

While waiting for the Moscow archives to deliver up their secrets last week, I popped into the Russian capital’s largest bookstore, Biblio Globus, to check out the history section—and while there, I took a very quick look at the politics …

Let’s Look in the Right Place for Proof of Citizen Allegiance

• 27 janvier 2012

Sometimes magical thinking pops up in the most unexpected places—like the recently-revived complaints about dual citizenship that have arisen around the candidacy of Thomas Mulcair (a dual citizen of Canada and France) for the NDP leadership. On Mulcair’s account, …

The End of the European Dream?

• 25 janvier 2012

In a recent article in Foreign Policy , the Brussels-based journalist Gareth Harding argues that “the European Union was built on the myth that we are one people with one common destiny”. In his view, “[w]e are now discovering that …

If Only We Could Take the Politics Out….

• 23 janvier 2012

‘If only we could take the politics out’ has become a ubiquitous cry in contemporary political life. This can be seen everywhere, but Barack Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is a classic instance. It has been decried from …

Putting the Corporate Back Into CSR: A Rejoinder to Natalie Brender

• 20 janvier 2012

In a blog post yesterday, my colleague Natalie Brender rejected a recent Ottawa Citizen column’s condemnations of the use of CIDA funds to subsidize Canadian mining companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects in mining-affected communities in developing countries.

The crux …

Libya Intervention of 2011: A Victory With Asterisks

• 10 janvier 2012

This article first appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute Quarterly Review.

The grotesque display of Muammar Qaddafi’s bloodied corpse in Sirte, Libya, where he was captured and killed, and later in …