QuickAssessments

Government control of the information space is one of the main features that characterize underdeveloped democracies. Under this aspect, Russia is no exception: the tradition of government control over the media and public opinion is rooted in Russian history and culture. Over history, the tsarist and communist regimes strived to prevent political dissent from being diffused through the press, in order to maintain a strong grip on society. Even after the collapse of the USSR the situation did not change substantially, although Art. 29 of the Russian constitution upheld freedom of speech and information. [1] In parallel to the political transformations triggered by the collapse of the USSR, mass media were also evolving thanks to the rise of the internet. Russian intelligence services, stuck in a Soviet mindset and facing a highly volatile domestic political environment, understood the internet’s potential to diffuse information and felt the need to control it. [2] Simply put...

Hacker and Pierson make their compelling case trying to answer the question on the causes of the dramatic widening in income inequality in the United States since the late 1970s. They delve into this argument passionately but also with a scientific acumen that is hard to find when talking about such debatable topics. At first, the authors affirm that the catchphrase “inequality has grown” doesn’t give the big picture of what has happened. They thus resort to the metaphor of the rungs of a ladder: supporting evidence, to the authors the first two rungs-namely, the top 1% incomes-have been growing apart for decades with regard to the middle class. Then, Hacker and Pierson boil down the main causes that have brought about this situation. In doing so, the authors demonstrate convincingly that the usual suspects—foreign trade and financial globalization, technological changes in the workplace, increased education at the top—are largely innocent of the charges against the...