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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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October 15, 2021

Fareed: The US Could Learn From Iraq's Democracy

Pointing to Iraq's recent elections, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column that 18 years after the US invasion, democracy is functioning surprisingly well there.
 
"Elections have become routine," Fareed writes. "Political parties compete and horse-trade. There is even a degree of pluralistic media and an increasingly assertive judiciary (not quite free and independent by Western standards, but one that is showing some progress). The independent electoral commission, for example, which is composed of judges, has been remarkably impartial and effective."
 
Following the vote, one lingering question concerns whether Iran-aligned militias, which figure to lose influence, will acknowledge the results as legitimate. To Americans, that may sound like a familiar problem after the Capitol riot of Jan. 6. "The losers should accept their loss and all parties must compromise," Fareed writes. "Who could have imagined a decade ago that Iraqi politics might provide some useful lessons for U.S. democracy?"

'The First Big Energy Shock of the Green Era'

That's what The Economist calls the current state of global energy, as prices of carbon-based sources—from gasoline to coal—have soared. The magazine points to various problems: "First, energy investment is running at half the level needed to meet the ambition to reach net zero by 2050," it writes. As the world chases a green transition, "[s]pending on renewables needs to rise," and natural gas needs to be utilized as a bridge from coal and oil to a cleaner future. The magazine sees another problem in autocracies' growing role in energy, as Russia and OPEC members figure to account for larger shares of global fuel production, while "rich democracies" try to quit carbon.
 
What's more, energy markets are run in shoestring fashion. "Just as Lehman Brothers relied on overnight borrowing, so some energy firms guarantee households and businesses supplies that they buy in an unreliable spot market," The Economist writes, suggesting we should treat energy purveyors like banks, demanding they hold more in reserve. All of this should be food for thought at the Oct. 31 launch of the COP26 climate conference in Scotland, the magazine writes.

Vaccine Hesitancy Is More Nuanced Than We Think

Unvaccinated Americans aren't merely anti-vaccine fanatics who glom onto conspiracy theories, Zeynep Tufekci writes in a New York Times column, citing evidence that many people simply aren't sure if the shots are safe. Some of them support wearing masks. That's not the same as spouting anti-science fantasy, Tufekci points out.
 
"Research on the unvaccinated by [the Kaiser Family Foundation] from this September showed the most powerful predictor of who remained unvaccinated was not age, politics, race, income or location, but the lack of health insurance," Tufekci writes. Employer vaccine mandates seem to work Tufekci notes, suggesting that might be because they allow unvaccinated people to save face when getting the shot. To Tufekci, more creative public communication—with emphases on face-saving, telling people they've been manipulated by anti-vax messaging, or making doctors more available to talk with—could be the answer.

Boosters All Around?

The US has recommended booster shots for some Covid-19-vulnerable groups who received the Moderna vaccine, following a growing cohort of countries pondering or approving boosters. At Nature, Smriti Mallapaty writes that the World Health Organization is recommending the same for those who received Chinese-made vaccines, which are the most widely distributed in the world, accounting "for almost half of the 7.3 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses delivered globally." While some have questioned the efficacy of Chinese vaccines, others insist they "still have a major part to play," Mallapaty writes; some researchers, meanwhile, are beginning to consider the mixing and matching of different kinds of shots in multi-dose regimens.

In UK Politics, Is Age the Dividing Line?

"A new Tory electorate has emerged—older, predominantly white, less educated and living outside the big cities," David Willetts writes for The Political Quarterly. "And age has replaced class as the crucial political divide" in Britain. Citing statistical analysis that suggests age is the strongest correlate to party choice in UK politics, Willetts notes a similar trend in age predicting how particular districts vote. Demographic geography could be part of it, Willetts writes, noting the UK has grown "more divided by age," locationally. Quoting 2019 analysis by Maja Gustafsson and Laura Gardiner, Willetts notes that "[i]n 2002, 35 constituencies in England and Wales had an average age 10 per cent higher than the national average, and 42 had an average age 10 per cent lower than the national average. Roll forward to 2017, and those figures had increased to 81 and 71, respectively."
 
Why is age rising in prominence as a political determinant? Willetts suggests it has to do with an economic divide, writing that aggregate wealth (i.e., owned assets) "used to run at about three times GDP ... But over the past twenty years that has shot up to reach seven times GDP. So, wealth matters much more than it did. And it is above all in the hands of the Baby Boomers."