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Visit www.bakerinstitute.org/blog for the latest insights and analysis from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Visit www.bakerinstitute.org/blog for the latest insights and analysis from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
NASA and the space industry need a new generation of problem solvers to answer the questions that will shape our future, but right now, they don’t have it. Continue Reading
Since reforms began 40 years ago post-Cultural Revolution, government policy in China has largely turned a blind eye to followers of religious organizations, provided they didn’t overtly protest or challenge the government like Falun Gong did in the 1990s with its massive… Continue Reading
While the U.S. still maintains the overall lead in Nobel prizes (with the exception of literature), the rate at which American scientists have been awarded the prize has declined since the late 1970s. Continue Reading
Although China has been closely surveilling its citizens’ internet usage for the last decade, the Chinese government only recently began constructing a “smart surveillance” CCTV system that matches the extent of existing online surveillance tools. The smart surveillance system is currently being piloted for several causes, from suppressing uprisings in the far western Xinjiang Autonomous Region, to policing jaywalking in the urban areas of Shenzhen in Guangdong. We must wonder: are there any limits to the proliferation of this surveillance technology? Continue Reading
The confluence of economic troubles and political uncertainty in Brazil is a toxic cocktail that threatens not only the country’s laudable economic gains but its democracy. Continue Reading
Associational life tends to change in fundamental ways with the fall of dictatorships and the emergence of democratizing regimes, which depend on the existence of multiple constituencies. Following this pattern, women’s associations in Tunisia, limited to two independent groups under… Continue Reading