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Publius

Displaying 1 - 10 of 11 articles

Tocqueville’s budget

Much of the anger at the federal budget is explained by a French political theorist who died 155 years ago. In one of the most prescient analyses of where democracy was heading, Alexis de Tocqueville warned…
EPA/Volodymyr Petrov

Does Ukraine herald the return of great power war?

It is not without irony that we are pondering the consequences of armed conflict in Ukraine in the centenary of the war to end all wars. Few in 1914 appreciated the scale of the bloodshed about to be unleashed…
EPA/Yoon S. Byun

Does Obama Care?

At the same point in his presidency as Barack Obama is now, George W. Bush was contemplating rescuing his foreign policy by surging troops into Iraq. President Obama is pondering how to salvage his domestic…
File Hamlet Prince of Demark Act I Scene IV.

Obama, Hamlet and Syria

Having asserted that the use of chemical weapons constituted a red line, the crossing of which by Bashar al-Assad would lead to violence against him, President Obama rendered it more pink. Instead, the…
original.

Where is the Australian Obama?

The impending victory of one middle-aged white male politician over another this Saturday raises the question of diversity in Australian politics. At a University of Melbourne Elections Masterclass on…
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Rudd, Abbott and the American debate analogy

The debate between Abbott and Rudd mimics that between American presidential candidates. But the US analogy both distorts and reveals. It distorts by personalising the election. Technically, very few Australians…