Book
As we described our work on the publisher’s website: Institutions, the humanly devised constraints of economic activity, are outcomes of elite agency. Leveraging ideas from economics, sociology, politics, and strategic management, this book proposes an “elite theory of economic development”. The overarching goal is to foster sustainable value creation at the elite business model level. This work also aims to contribute to transformational leadership, and links are made to the annual Elite Quality Index (EQx), a measure of the value creation of national elites.
Book
This book is the optimistic counterpart to Levitsky and Ziblatt, somewhat more demanding but also more original. Manow shows how democracy has become both more open and more vulnerable: more people are participating directly, while traditional institutions are losing their binding force. Many of today's crises arise from internal tensions between participation and representation. The book thus helps to understand the current transformation of democracy not only as decline, but also as the result of ambivalent changes.
Book
To better grasp the broader aims of elite theory, it is worth taking a look at the now-classic work by Noble Prize winners. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson link inclusive institutions to prosperity.
Book
You don't necessarily have to share the pessimism of this book to recognise its significance. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that today's democracies are hardly ever destroyed by coups, but rather by the creeping erosion of democratic norms. The book contrasts current developments in the USA with the Weimar Republic and authoritarian tendencies in Latin America, thereby sharpening our focus on the specific situation of democracy in the present day.
Podcast
Unfortunately, not me but Martin Wolf, the Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times, talks to Kenneth Rogoff about Donald Trump's trade policy, the future of the dollar, and what this means for other currencies.
Book
Anyone who wants to understand the history of democracy, the history of America and the history of the 19th century in a good way will find a wealth of inspiration in this book. Tocqueville was an aristocrat without reactionary airs and graces who analysed the French Revolution and American democracy with critical distance – and in doing so understood them in a good way compared to most of the actors involved. His book on democracy in America is one of the most important classics of modern democratic theory.
Book
Europe is another focus of elite theory which examines the performance of its elite system. There is no stronger diagnosis of the continents’ challenges than Mario Draghi’s report, "The Future of European Competitiveness" (2024) that benchmarks Europe against China and the United States.
Book
"The Fragile Balance of Terror", edited by Vipin Narang and Scott D. Sagan, brings together a diverse collection of rigorous and creative scholars who analyze how the nuclear landscape is changing for the worse.
Book
Up to now, no one outside of official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilisation as we know it. Based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts, "Nuclear War" by Annie Jacobsen is at once a compulsive non-fiction thriller and a powerful argument that we must rid ourselves of these world-ending weapons for ever.
Book
Harvard Professor Kenneth Rogoff demonstrates that the dollar’s decline began before Trump.
Book
This is a fascinating book that sheds light on early attempts to predict the future using data-driven forecasts and models – long before big data and social media dominated our lives. Jill Lepore takes us on a journey through the history of the Simulmatics Corporation, which in the 1960s attempted to control society through data analysis – first from 5th Avenue in New York for commercial marketing, then in the 1960 election campaign for John F. Kennedy, and at one point even in the Vietnam War. Their story impressively shows how technological developments and early forms of data analysis influenced the political landscape and continue to change our understanding of democracy and power to this day. But it also shows where the limits of the technologisation of democracy lie.
Series
"We're steeped in liberal culture" – many conservatives claim that we are saturated with left-wing liberal culture. They say that everything, from films and television to music, is ‘woke’ and ‘out of touch’. However, some productions are particularly successful in reaching conservative audiences. The neo-Western series "Yellowstone", starring Kevin Costner, tells stories about family ties, loyalty, resistance to the state, the conflict between the urban coastal mentality and that of the north-west, and the connection to the land itself.
Podcast
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind and Nobel Prize laureate, in conversation with Lex Fridman. One central focus of contemporary elite theory is artificial intelligence (AI), as emerging elites redefine the political economy. To understand the nature of the technology ahead, give it a listen.
Podcast
There are more conservative podcasts than there is time to listen to them all. But Ross Douthat's “Interesting Times” is worth the 45 minutes a week. His guests are mostly conservatives, some very well-known such as Peter Thiel and Vice President JD Vance, others increasingly well- known such as Oren Cass, or (for many of us) yet to be discovered such as publisher Jonathan Keeperman.
Book
In 2018, Deneen published what I still consider to be the sharpest conservative diagnosis of our times. In my view, it is essential reading. Oren Cass often sounds like an echo of Deneen.
The Lobito Corridor shows how digitization is shaping critical minerals competition Expert comment thilton.drupal 17 July 2026 The railway from Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia is a global focal point of the race for critical minerals. But the digitization of mineral supply chains will be crucial to achieving genuine economic transformation in the region. Two recent major investment announcements have refocused attention on the Lobito Corridor, a Western-backed infrastructure initiative centred on a railway linking Lobito on Angola’s Atlantic coast to the inland resource-rich areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia.On 3 July, the US International Development Finance Corporation and the Development Bank of Southern Africa secured a $753-million package to rehabilitate and upgrade the 1,300-km single-track railway from Lobito to the DRC border, known as the Lobito Atlantic Railway. On 10 July, the DRC government approved a partnership with Portuguese construction company Mota-Engil for a complete rehabilitation of the railway line from Angola’s border to the copper and cobalt producing regions in the DRC. These moves are part of wider geopolitical competition between the US (and its European partners) and China – the dominant international presence in the region – over infrastructure, mineral production and development opportunities. In this context, the railway has become the centrepiece of a potential regional mining ecosystem that could economically transform Africa’s strategic Copperbelt. — Railway lines are approximate and based on a combination of maps from the Lobito Corridor Investment Promotion Authority and the European Commission, accessed online. Base map made with Natural Earth and World Bank data. But for this regional mining ecosystem to become integrated across borders and achieve genuine economic transformation, it will need to be digitized. Digitization has increasingly become a vital and under-appreciated feature of the mining sector. Data systems – such as online geological databases, traceability tools and transparency portals – and mining cadastre systems (online land records of mining rights) are fundamental to achieving regional mining ambitions. However, they present a new and distinct set of governance challenges that span the life of a mine: in particular, what data is needed and how is it collected? Who owns it, where is it stored, and who has access to it? Digitized records and their challengesThe digitized geological records of the DRC are a source of value, causing competition over owning and accessing them. This can be seen in the recent disagreement between the Belgian government and KoBold, a US company backed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, over who should digitize the colonial-era geological records on the DRC that are being kept in a Belgian museum. Belgium has refused KoBold access to the museum’s archives. The case demonstrates how geo-economic competition and ensuing public-private tensions are catalysing ongoing debates on data ownership and management. Angola, the DRC and Zambia are implementing online cadastre systems that list land records of mining rights. In principle, these systems should reduce overlaps and simplify the allocation of rights, while being more transparent to help prevent corruption and give investors confidence. However, several challenges have emerged. Bad inputs result in misleading information flows. Firstly, digitized systems are still corruptible. Whether containing geological data or information on licenses and rights, digital systems can be corrupted. In some instances, digitization makes this easier than when information is stored in hard copy. This has led some mining companies to lose confidence in digitized systems in the region, due to changes allegedly being made overnight to concession ownership, opaque back end controls and limited audit trails. Secondly, these systems often depend on human capacity that does not yet fully exist. At the DRC Mining Week at Lubumbashi in June, Chatham House heard how digital cadastres had often been operated by staff with limited experience working with computers. The effectiveness of a data system relies on a simple principle – what comes out is only as good as what goes in. Bad inputs result in misleading information flows. Digitization without capacity and safeguards therefore risks simply re encoding existing power imbalances into a new format.Tracing requires trust and interoperabilityThe DRC and its neighbours have been the focus of several international legal and regulatory requirements to report on minerals provenance, or tracing minerals back to their origin. This is due to the link between conflict and minerals, especially in the east of the country. The DRC’s state-owned certification agency (CEEC) has launched an E-trace digital platform to track and certify minerals across the value chain, ostensibly to ensure responsible sourcing.However, there are notable differences between what international markets are asking for, what is actually feasible, and what is in the best interests of mining-dependent communities and producing states. The World Today Related work Angola’s critical mineral express Consumers and regulators increasingly want mechanisms that can trace a material all the way back to where it came out of the ground to provide assurance on provenance and responsible production. For the DRC, traceability is often understood primarily as verification of mineral deposits and exports: ensuring that reported volumes and qualities match what is actually being taken out of the country and transported along the Corridor. The DRC’s emphasis reflects genuine concerns about misreporting, leakage and illicit flows. However, it stops short of a fuller, mine to manufacturer conception of traceability that would follow material all the way through the supply chain. Similarly, transparency systems are often limited by what companies can easily measure and are willing to disclose. Reporting formats also differ across firms and jurisdictions, making it difficult to assemble a coherent picture of corridor wide performance. Trustworthy, interoperable data systems are essential. How these systems talk to each other, what they measure, and who controls them will heavily influence whether the Lobito Corridor becomes a coherent, credible space for investment and accountable development.More unified data management requires interoperable systems and standards, agreed protocols for data ownership and access, and shared understandings of what traceability and transparency should encompass. Trustworthy, interoperable data systems are essential. Entry points for development partnersDigital infrastructure should in theory constitute the backbone of effective data governance along the Lobito Corridor, turning physical infrastructure into an integrated ecosystem. Given Africa’s over-reliance on undersea cables, reinforcing inland connectivity should be a priority. However, the Corridor’s digital component has so far lagged behind. While it does feature in the long-term strategic vision for the Corridor, it has not been the focus of the recent wave of investment announcements or ongoing development partnerships. Meanwhile, the DRC recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Beijing for the construction of a 2100km fibre optic network along the Congo River.
Chatham House
Globalisation has changed economic research profoundly, making it more comparable, more competitive, and thoroughly quantitative. This column argues that AI may unsettle this new order as thoroughly as globalisation unsettled the old one and discusses the technical and geopolitical mechanisms at work. One prediction can be made with high confidence: someone who wakes up thirty years from now is likely to recognise economics as little as someone who fell asleep thirty years ago and just woke up today.
Center for Economic Policy Research
Through research and entrepreneurship, Professor Devavrat Shah is helping to design methods that can handle constant decision-making using limited computational resources.
MIT
Computational Linguistics, International Security, and The Review of Economics and Statistics lead their disciplines with 2026 Clarivate impact factors.
MIT
Die KI-Euphorie treibt die Börsen auf neue Höhen. Anleger wetten auf die grosse Zukunft der künstlichen Intelligenz.
SRF Wirtschaft
