Let Local Residents Govern the California–Baja Border

The People Living with the Mess the U.S. and Mexico Made Have the Best Chance of Cleaning It Up

California-Baja Border | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

To: Baja California Gov.-elect Marina del Pilar Ávila and California Gov. Gavin Newsom
Cc: Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria
Re: A Borderlands Assembly

All four of you can see that the American and Mexican governments are playing politics with the border. Both nations at the federal level refuse to govern the borderlands with the respect and responsibility that the place and its people deserve.

If you work together, you can establish a new body with the power and legitimacy to represent your constituents on both sides of …

by Joe Mathews | November 2, 2021

Can We Tame the Wild West of Big Tech Media?

To Retain the Promise and Decrease the Danger of the Internet, the Federal Government Needs to Rebuild Our Digital Infrastructure—Starting With Revoking Section 230

by Steven Hill | January 25, 2021

Why do so many people, including both former President Donald Trump and new President Joe Biden, keep talking about getting rid of an obscure law called Section 230?

The short …

For Global Democracy, These Are the Worst of Times, but Also the Best of Times

A Rising Tide of Authoritarianism Co-Exists With Advancing Forms of Participatory and Direct Democracy

by Joe Mathews | September 29, 2020

Right now, it can feel like the worst of times for democracy. It also can feel like the best of times.

Democracy is under stress around the world from authoritarians and …

In Liechtenstein, Power to the People—And the Prince

For Nearly a Century, the Small European Nation Has Fused Monarchy and Direct Democracy Into a Government That Works

by Wilfried Marxer | September 25, 2020

Liechtenstein, the nation of 38,500 in the heart of Europe, has for nearly a century deftly governed itself by combining two seemingly contradictory elements: direct democracy and monarchy. Rather than …

What Would Cicero See in American Governance Today?

Before the Rise of Caesar, the Roman Statesman Predicted How the Spread of Lawlessness Could Destroy a Republic

by Edward Watts | September 23, 2020

At some point in the early summer of 54 BC, the Roman statesman Cicero set to work on his most consequential work of political philosophy: De Re publica (On the …

How a Public Railroad Saved Alaska

Long Before Statehood, the Progressive Era Made the Last Frontier Possible

by Thomas Alton | April 30, 2020

Alaska officially became a state in 1959, but its modern origins occurred in the two decades that followed the discovery of gold in the Klondike in 1896.

At the turn …

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