political economy.
9 pieces filed under political economy
The Regional Press Conference Has Become a Building, Not an Event
Why the staging, the seating chart, and the side rooms now do more diplomatic work than the answers from the podium.
By Mira Faraj
PoliticsJun 3
Saudi Arabia Is Buying the Future, One Consultancy Report at a Time
If the future arrived in a slide deck, the Kingdom would already be living in it. The actual schedule is more flexible.
By Mira Faraj
PoliticsJun 3
The Annual Budget Speech Has Quietly Become Performance Art
Why a document that used to be read for numbers is now consumed, in this region, mostly for the staging.
By Mira Faraj
PoliticsJun 3
The Cabinet Reshuffle Is, Mostly, a Language Event
Why the most consequential thing about the latest reshuffle was not who got what portfolio, but what the new portfolio was called.
By Lena Holloway
PoliticsJun 3
Anti-Corruption Units Are Hiring. The Listings Are More Telling Than the Mandates.
What you can read off a job description, when you read it properly.
By Lena Holloway
TechnologyJun 3
An Arabic-First Language Model Just Quietly Stopped Being Worse
Inside the recent improvements in the local language-model ecosystem, and why the gap to the global frontier closed faster than nearly anyone predicted.
By Priya Chen
PoliticsJun 3
Every Country Now Has a Ministry of the Future. The Future Is Underwhelmed.
Inside the global rush to bureaucratise the long term, and the suspicion that the long term has noticed.
By Lena Holloway
OpinionJun 3
Stop Calling It a Vision
Why the word has lost the meaning the strategy decks need it to carry, and what to use instead.
By Diego Arroyo
WorldJun 3
The Embassy Iftar Is the Most Underestimated Instrument of Regional Foreign Policy
Why a single carefully assembled guest list, served on a single carefully assembled plate, can do more strategic work in three hours than a year of communiques.
By Lena Holloway