In many ways there is great irony to this piece. While we are in the midst of a Republican controlled White House and a Conservative led Westminster there is a large necessity to discuss why the ideologies to which both governments across the Atlantic supposedly adhere to is in crisis. Whilst it is impossible to…
Category: International Relations
North Korea: Why Hardball is Good-ball
Why it’s time to get tough with North Korea’s leaders.
Is economic globalisation incompatible with national democracy? (Part Two)
The second of a two part examination of the relationship between economic globalisation and democracy, with a particular focus on whether the two can co-exist. The first part was published on Saturday the 15th and can be found here. Technology: a force for democracy? One way in which economic globalisation has aided…
Is economic globalisation incompatible with national democracy? (Part 1)
The first of a two part essay on the relationship between economic globalisation and democracy, with a particular focus on whether the two can co-exist. Introduction Across the Western world, economic globalisation is under attack. Whether it be Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and the author Naomi Klein on the left, or Donald Trump, Marine Le-Pen…
2016 – A bad year for progress
To say 2016 was a bad year for progress is an understatement. A right-wing populist surge continues to sweep the Western world, bloody conflict rages on in the Middle-East, and with it comes an outpouring of refugees in unprecedented numbers. The left and the principles of liberalism as a whole have taken a beating, and…
Young people and democracy: a troubled relationship?
If you’re 16 in the UK, you can drop out of school, get a job, pay taxes, and even join the army. Yet, in spite of all of this, you cannot vote. Governments with the ability to send people to war, change the rate of tax and change the laws to which we are all…
Editorial: The EU Referendum
Here at Pertinent Problems, we strive to promote free and open debate, and inquiry at the very highest of levels on the global issues that matter. In an EU referendum campaign that has been too close to call, we think it would be helpful to those seeking to gain an understanding of the debate to present…
Is the ‘Bern’ waning?
Hillary Clinton’s most recent victories in the Democratic primaries have left most analysts resigning Bernie Sanders to an inevitable defeat to the former New York senator for the Democratic nomination. While he plans to run his campaign all the way til the Democratic convention in July, his decision to lay off hundreds of his campaign…
Let’s be frank: we’re staying in the EU
Barack Obama’s recent comments that it could take 10 years for the UK to sign a trade deal with the USA should they leave the EU, has resigned me to something I’ve been trying to deny for a while. Regardless of the merit of the arguments on either side, it is ultimately the fear factor…
How should we respond to the Brussels attacks?
The horrific attacks at a Brussels Metro station and airport, just five months after the atrocities in Paris in November has once again thrown the problems of radicalisation among young Muslims and questions over European border controls, (in particular the Schengen agreement) into the limelight. Despite revisions to the agreement expected to be announced as…
Style, not substance, is the new politics
From Jeremy Corbyn on the left to Donald Trump on the right, from Bernie Sanders in America to Pablo Iglesias in Spain and Marine Le Pen in France, outsider candidates continue to make waves across the western world. And while these politicians are certainly proposing radical (if not always new) ideas, their different policies only…
Should the UK renew Trident?
“If the third World War is fought with nuclear weapons, the fourth will be fought with bows and arrows.” The decision of whether or not to renew Trident, Britain’s sea-based nuclear deterrent, threatens to tear apart an already deeply divided Labour party. It is an issue that puts Jeremy Corbyn, a long time believer in…
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