Since 2006, the Economist Intelligence Unit has measured the quality of democracy in 167 countries and territories across the world. Its last index, for 2024, was published in February. Over the past ...

Over the past few years, though, I have watched versions of reckoning with China unfold across very different milieus, each shaped by a unique vantage point. For Kaiser’s generation of American ...

Five genre-bending drama series made keenly anticipated returns to television this year, all of them meeting expectations convincingly enough to ensure a further season. Clearing the hurdle for ...

National affairs Selling immigration Peter Brent 4 September 2025 The weekend’s protests are a reminder of Australia’s distinctive record ...

Books & arts The Indo-Pacific’s new age of power politics Graeme Dobell 29 October 2025 Southeast Asia has moved to the centre of China–US rivalry ...

Essays & reportage John Howard’s masterful blunder Graeme Dobell 29 May 2025 He achieved his goal, but Australia’s alliance-led march to Iraq lacked a vital ingredient Books & arts Chill winds Graeme ...

Other Voices Why do we still have so many radiologists? Noah Smith 17 October 2025 AI model-makers predicted a sharp dropoff in jobs. So far, reality is refusing to oblige ...

National affairs Pharmaceutical warfare Lesley Russell 24 March 2025 How far will the Trump administration follow Big Pharma in targeting Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme? International ...

Nations are built with pens and brushes not just hammers and nails. They exhibit their character in what they say about themselves as much as what is said about them. — Bruce Pascoe, Convincing Ground ...

In Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, 93 per cent of children attend public schools. In Alberta, the province that topped Canada for reading and science in the latest round of OECD tests, ...

Australia’s renewable energy revolution offers the biggest opportunity since the gold rushes and the wool and mining booms to revitalise regional Australia. Not that you’d know it from the claims made ...

In November 2017 a group of protesters in São Paulo burnt an effigy of acclaimed gender theorist Judith Butler outside an academic conference she was attending, while waving crucifixes and national ...