Moisés Naím / New York Times

The world needs permanent organizations that earn political power and govern, that are forced to articulate disparate interests and viewpoints, that can recruit and develop future government leaders and that monitor those already in power.

Moisés Naím / New York Times

The world is about to discover that the substantial and totally unexpected drop in the price of crude oil may be as disruptive as the shock of oil price hikes in 1974.

Recent news out of Russia, Venezuela and Cuba illustrate how the consequences are beginning to become apparent.

Moisés Naím / New York Times

Last month, Jorge Botti, the head of Fedecámaras, Venezuela's business federation, explained that unless the government supplies more dollars to pay for imports, shortages -- from food to medicine -- would be inevitable. "What we will give Fedecámaras is not more dollars but more headaches," replied acting president Nicolas Maduro, the heir apparent to the Chavista regime (and Hugo Chávez's vice president).

Moisés Naím / New York Times

Predicting Europe’s growing international irrelevance has become as common as mocking the follies of Brussels.

In fact, the consensus is that within a few short decades, the weight of European economies in the world is bound to plummet to less than half of what it is today.

Moisés Naím / New York Times

My friend was visibly shaken. He had just learned that he had lost one of his clients to Chinese competitors. “It’s amazing,” he told me. “The Chinese have completely priced us out of the market. We can’t compete with what they’re able to offer.”

There’s nothing surprising about that, of course; manufacturing jobs are lost to China every day. But my friend is not in manufacturing. He works in foreign aid.