Steven Hill
Steven Hill is a political writer and director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation. His next book, Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope for an Insecure Age (www.EuropesPromise.org), will be published in January 2010. His previous books include 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy (2006); Fixing Elections: The Failure of America’s Winner Take All Politics (2003); and Whose Vote Counts (with Rob Richie, 2001). His articles and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Financial Times and many other leading publications.
Angela Merkel: The World’s ‘Most Valuable Leader’
Forget Barack Obama. Forget the Hu Jintao/Wen Jiaboa duo, or David Cameron or Vladimir Putin. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is the world’s most important leader. The latest report showing Germany’s economy growing at a blistering annual rate of nearly 9%, well into recovery from a US-made economic collapse, is just further evidence of the obvious. Despite [...]
Europe Needs a Public Relations Makeover
The American-European relationship has been crucially important during the post-World War II era for both places. Yet recently it has been hurt by both neglect and design. Even before the Greek debt crisis, Europe had been suffering a longstanding public relations crisis in the United States. Americans think they know quite a lot about Europe, [...]
Closing the ‘Democracy Deficit’ in the EU and US
My recent research trip to Switzerland with a group of other Americans was enlightening, in more ways than one. Besides admiring the great beauty of the Swiss mountains, lakes and picturesque cities, it was a chance to study in depth the Alpine jewel’s system of direct democracy (initiative and referendum, or I&R). With both the [...]
Lessons from the Gulf of Mexico: US Needs a National Energy Policy like Europe’s
With the spectre of the Greek default crisis still hanging over Europe, it may seem like Europe can’t do anything right. But with hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic black oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the United States could learn plenty from Europe about energy policy. By forging ahead with widespread implementation [...]
What the Doomsayers Haven’t Been Telling You about Greece
The recent battle over healthcare reform in the United States, in which the Obama administration was barely able to pass weak reform, is just further proof of how far the US has fallen behind Europe. Yet all the media has been able to obsess over for the last couple of months is – the Greek [...]
Europe’s Case of ‘Chief Executive Envy’
Every time Europe goes through one of its occasional crises, calls arise across the continent for ‘stronger leadership.’ The perception of having feeble leadership was a major factor in the push for the Lisbon Treaty, which went into effect late in 2009 and created a president for the European Council and a high representative for [...]
The Greek Aftershock – Will it Make or Break Europe?
After the earthquake come the aftershocks. That is a law of geophysics, and now apparently of economics. Well over a year ago, the world economy suffered a massive economic quake of 8.0 on the Richter scale. Since then different countries have been experiencing a number of aftershocks. Two aftershocks have grabbed headlines, one recently in [...]
What a Post-American World means for Europe
In recent months, Europe has learned some hard lessons about its transatlantic partner. President Barack Obama triggered great hope when he replaced George W. Bush at the American helm. But a year later, especially following Obama’s failure to produce anything of substance at Copenhagen, Europeans are realizing that Obama is going to have a difficult [...]
Next Steps for Social Democracy: An American Perspective
Europe still has a role to play as a beacon for social-democratic values. As an American, I have been following this discussion with great interest. The predicament of social democracy strikes at the heart of several modern dilemmas that will be at the forefront of the twenty-first century. Much hangs in the balance. From the [...]
World Wide Webbed: The Obama Campaign’s masterful Use of the Internet
Just as President Barack Obama has shaken up the status quo in his first 100 days in office, his campaign overturned old formulas about how to win the presidency. The Obama campaign did not focus only on battleground states, but instead charged into states that previously had been solidly Republican turf. With a historic economic [...]
