Moisés Naím / Financial Times

In the past decade the world was regularly taken unawares by domestic financial accidents that spread to other countries at great speed, following surprising trajectories. Today, we are regularly startled by political incidents that also spread internationally at great speed, on trajectories that are equally surprising.

Moisés Naím / Financial Times

In January 2000, Ecuadoreans took to the streets and forced Jamil Mahuad, their democratically elected president, to resign. A few months later, Peruvians did the same to Alberto Fujimori. Last January popular protests in Argentina drove out President Fernando de la Rúa. Three countries, three differing sets of circumstances and three presidents with contrasting personalities; yet there is a telling common thread to events.

Moisés Naím / Financial Times

Current levels of world poverty are unacceptable. More money for development is needed. The approaches and institutions that guide foreign aid should be overhauled. It is hard to disagree with these conclusions. Certainly, the heads of state who met in Monterrey the other week did not. As a result, they will make more money available to fight world poverty and vigorously explore ideas for spending it more effectively.

Moisés Naím / Financial Times

What country, other than the US, allows an Enron-class company to go under? An Enron-class company is a dominant and innovative global player in a highly sensitive market and is funded by influential blue-chip banks and by thousands of small investors. More importantly, an Enron-class company is a political powerhouse whose influence runs deep and wide, with close allies in the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of government and a network of well fed supporters in the ranks of academia, journalism, interest groups, sports clubs and myriad charities.

Moisés Naím / Financial Times

What does al-Qaeda have in common with Amnesty International and Greenpeace? All three are loose networks of individuals united by a shared passion for a single cause, and, thanks to cheaper communication and transport, each can project its influence globally. Their funding comes from small contributions made by thousands of sympathisers and from large sums given by a few big donors. Their effectiveness derives from the single-minded devotion of their idealistic activists.

Moisés Naím / Financial Times

Recession, international instability, social inequality and terrorism: 2001 has been a difficult year. In the search for explanations, many have found a common root to the world's travails in the political and economic developments of the 1990s.

Moisés Naím / Financial Times

For all the post-September 11 focus on Islamic anti-Americanism, the world's reaction has in fact exposed the variety, complexity and ubiquity of antipathy towards the US. In Argentina, Hebe de Bonafini, an internationally known human rights activist and president of the Association of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (mothers of Argentines who "disappeared" during the dictatorships), has said: "When the attack happened I felt happiness." In France, the editor of Le Monde Diplomatique offered his summary of the world's reaction: "What's happening to [Americans] is too bad but they had it coming."

Moisés Naím / Financial Times

This week's terrorist attacks not only killed people; they also killed ideas. Many of the certainties and assumptions that guided position papers, policies and budgets will not survive the deliberate crash of jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Some of the ideas that passed away last Tuesday had been with us for decades; others were as new as the Bush administration. The attacks have also brought about new ideas, some of which are likely to be as misguided as those discarded.

Moisés Naím / Financial Times

With all the feverish talk of anti-globalisation protesters, people seem to have lost sight of an important point: today's summits would achieve little even if the angry mob stayed at home.