Category: Academic Reportage

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Danny Bradlow, Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria African sovereign debtors in distress face terrible choices. They are often forced to choose between fully paying their creditors and financing the needs of their populations – health, education, renewable energy, water. Discussions…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Astrid R.N. Haas, Research associate at African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town For decades, the dominant theories and models in urban studies have been built from the experience of a small set of mostly western cities. Other urban contexts, particularly those in Africa, Latin…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ana Carolina Garriga, Professor. Department of Government, University of Essex The fate of Lisa Cook, who is fighting attempts by President Donald Trump to remove her from the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, has huge implications for a keystone of good economic policy: central bank…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ana Carolina Garriga, Professor. Department of Government, University of Essex The fate of Lisa Cook, who is fighting attempts by President Donald Trump to remove her from the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, has huge implications for a keystone of good economic policy: central bank independence.…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Canada – By S. Mehmet Ozsoy, Assistant Professor of Finance, Concordia University Unlike hurricanes and floods, which arrive suddenly and tend to dominate headlines with dramatic images of wrecked homes and submerged towns, droughts are often overlooked by media, governments and markets because they unfold more slowly. Their gradual…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Poppy Cullen, Lecturer in International History, Loughborough University In the 1950s, Kenyans fought against colonial control in what came to be known as the Mau Mau rebellion. In response, the British government announced a state of emergency in 1952 and engaged in a brutal counter-insurgency…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Pierre Rochette, Emeritus professor in geophysics, Aix-Marseille Université (AMU) Lake Iro in Chad was in the news in early August 2025 after a picture taken by a NASA astronaut was published showing it looking like a large, circular silver mirror as sunlight reflected off its…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Marta-Marika Urbanik, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta Public concerns about fentanyl’s proliferation across Canada have focused on overdose deaths and drug-related disorders. However, in addition to these pressing concerns, our recent research in Thunder Bay, Ont., unmasks additional impacts of Canada’s street-based drug…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Matt Polacko, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Political Science, University of Toronto Canada’s recent federal election reversed a trend of declining voter turnout, increasing by more than six percentage points over 2021. Elections Canada reported a turnout of almost 70 per cent, the highest level in 32 years.…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – France – By Julia Moutiez, Doctorante en Architecture et Enseignante à l’École d’architecture de Paris Val-de-Seine, Université Paris Nanterre – Université Paris Lumières Bathing on a hot day in Paris, 1932. Agence Rol / Gallica / BNF As the 2024 Olympic Games drew near, the promise of being able…