In the age of Trumpian politics, nationalistic jingoism in the West, and intermittent escalation in the Xi-Trump wrestle for global power, Jeffrey Sachs stands out as amongst the most vocal public intellectuals on the subject of US-China relations and economic development. His latest work, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018), offers a brief glimpse into…

In her seminal essay “Truth and Politics”, Hannah Arendt argued that politics naturally lends itself to the distortion of truth. She suggested that in order to combat the inveterate lies of the political world, we must adopt the perspective of one who is “outside the political realm”. If politicians are confined solely to Arendt’s political…

Brian: How does the internet, or more specifically, the rise of cultural phenomena across social media platforms (e.g. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) reshape – if at all – our understanding of soft power? We’ve seen how big a role Twitter played during the Arab Spring, but would you say that, in light of the increasing prevalence…

You are one of the most prominent and outspoken defenders of liberal and egalitarian politics in the Philippines. Given how difficult this has been in light of the political context of the country, what motivated you in the first place to become an activist, and what continues to motivate her to persevere? One instance that…