lunes, 4 de mayo de 2026

But in the well-being of ordinary citizens? A careful study released Wednesday and based on a measure called the Social Progress Index suggests that in terms of quality of life, the United States ranks 32nd out of 171 countries, behind Poland, Lithuania and Cyprus.

More alarming, the United States has fallen steadily in the rankings over the years, under Republican and Democratic presidents alike — and now seems poised to fall further because of cuts in health care and other services by President Trump.

The Social Progress Index was introduced in the 2010s by a high-powered team of scholars and experts. The United States ranked 18th in 2011, and while that was troubling, we were still ahead of France, Italy and Spain. Now they outrank America.

The Social Progress Index has 12 components, and since 2011 the United States has fallen in the rankings in all of them, said Michael Green, the chief executive of the group that publishes the index each year.

“The quality of life in America is not just worse than in a handful of small Scandinavian countries but also worse than in all of America’s G7 competitors,” Green told me. “We’ve slipped behind former Communist countries like Slovenia, Lithuania and Estonia and behind other relatively new democracies like South Korea.”

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“The U.S. won the Cold War by being an economic superpower and a social progress superpower,” Green added. “Over the last 30 years, America has simply let go, in terms of social progress.”

The Social Progress Index is just one set of metrics, of course, and one could quibble about this or that score. But it is a useful exercise to employ objective data to weigh quality of life across countries:

In safety, the United States ranks 99th, the index finds, behind Pakistan and Nicaragua.

In K-12 education, America is 47th, behind Vietnam and Kazakhstan.

In health, we rank 45th, behind Argentina and Panama.

Most other attempts to assess nations by well-being also show the United States struggling in recent years. The recent World Happiness Report, ranking countries based on polling about happiness and how people evaluate their lives, has the United States at 24th — down from 15th a decade earlier. The Atlantic Council’s freedom index ranks America No. 22 and in decline, and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index puts the United States at No. 28.

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, with its celebration of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In a sense, the Social Progress Index and these other assessment tools evaluate how well we’re doing by our own metrics.

The United States does a fine job generating economic growth, but it lags at translating that G.D.P. growth into the things we most care about.

For a contrast, consider Latvia. It has less than half the per capita G.D.P. of the United States, but it enjoys similar scores on the Social Progress Index.

The index is not, of course, definitive. I think the United States is more honest than some other countries in data collection (in areas such as neonatal mortality), and I worry that Western Europe, for all its social gains, has an economic model that suppresses innovation and long-term growth.

Yet the index also captures something real. It explains some of the frustration and discontent that helped elect Donald Trump on the right and Zohran Mamdani on the left. When Americans say that the system is not working for them, these rankings illuminate why they feel such frustration.

As I suggested, things may get worse. As I wrote recently, Trump’s cuts in health care may cost 51,000 lives annually and result in 101,000 cases of untreated addiction annually, along with 138,000 cases of untreated diabetes.

Liberals may be tempted to focus on Trump’s shortcomings. But there is something larger going on here as well: Since about 1970, the United States has been lagging peer countries in some quality-of-life measures.

“It’s not about Trump,” Green said. “Obama and Biden did little to reverse the decline, nor did the Bushes or Clinton. It’s a multipresident, bipartisan, long, slow car crash. Yet voters seem to have been anesthetized by a rising stock market and economic growth, until in recent years it’s become clear to people that their living standards have stagnated — and that’s why they’ve turned to the populist promise of MAGA and Trump.”

He added, “We have to think about Trump as the consequence rather than the cause of America’s progress decline.”

So what’s the solution?

Part of the answer may be investments in human capital — in children, education and lifting skill levels. That’s everything from early childhood initiatives to vocational training, from drug treatment to community colleges.

Our relentless decline in our international standing should be an alarm bell in the night. We are not the nation we think we are, and we should shake off this complacency unless we’re comfortable with our patriotic boast becoming, “We’re No. 32!”

lunes, 19 de enero de 2026

Don’t Back Down, Europe (Francis Fukuyama )

https://www.persuasion.community/p/dont-back-down-europe?utm_medium=email&sma=newsletter_geopolitica&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=apuntesdegeopolitica_2026.01.19_2

Whether or not Trump invades Greenland, this much is clear: the western order we once knew is history (Timothy Garton Ash)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/15/rude-new-world-internationalism-trump-greenland

sábado, 5 de abril de 2025

Europe cannot fathom what Trumpian America wants from it (The Economist, April 3 2025)

Europe cannot fathom what Trumpian America wants from it: From tariffs to Ukraine, Europeans are stuck in the Fog of Peace

Carl von Clausewitz, a 19th-century Prussian general, described warfare as “the realm of uncertainty”. The fellow never had to deal with an American administration run by Donald Trump. Forget the fog of war Clausewitz posited; Europe is discovering the perils of wading through the haze of Pax Americana, MAGA edition. Wish it luck. Being the biggest trading partner of a country that seeks “liberation” through tariffs, or a decades-long military ally of a superpower now parroting Kremlin talking points, is akin to inching through a geopolitical pea-souper. Europe is hardly alone in being flummoxed by Mr Trump (many Americans are, too). But it faces a unique problem: Europe cannot fathom what it should do to fix its already broken relationship with the new administration. Even if Europeans wanted to help their historical partner—a big “if” these days—disagreements abound as to what that partner wants.

The alliance with America has never been entirely straightforward. Yankee gripes about anaemic European military spending go back decades. A continent striving for ever-closer union was occasionally splintered into factions for American convenience, as when George W. Bush’s lot tried to pit “old Europe” against “new Europe” during the Gulf war. American regulators clobbered French and German firms with billion-dollar fines while decrying any constraints on their own tech giants doing business in the European Union. Even pro-European administrations wound up blindsiding the continent’s policymakers. In 2022 Joe Biden announced generous green-industry subsidies (Bravo!) which turned out to be closed to market-leading firms in Europe (Zut alors!).

But this time is different. The Trumpian top brass making decisions of great import to Europe—not least over the fate of Ukraine—hold America’s historical allies in startling contempt. In a recent leak from a not-so-secret Signal group of top officials, Europe was decried as “PATHETIC” by Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary. J.D. Vance was just as critical, though this was predictable after the vice-president had blasted Europeans at a conference in Munich in February. Mr Trump had himself set the tone, imagining that the EU had been set up with the sole intent to “screw” America. On April 2nd he whacked European imports with a tariff rate of 20%. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said she felt “let down by our oldest ally”.

Speaking to diplomats in Brussels and beyond, Charlemagne has heard three theories to explain MAGA hatred of Europe. Understanding which is correct matters, because each comes with its own set of remedies to assuage the Euro-bashers.

The first possibility is that Mr Trump simply shares his predecessors’ desire that Europeans bear the burden for their own defence, and feels unconstrained by diplomatic niceties in making the case. Barack Obama warned over a decade ago that America would “pivot to Asia” (ie, away from Europe and the Middle East) to address a Chinese threat that has since grown more acute. That did little to motivate Europe into spending more. By contrast, Trumpian goading—insulting as it might seem—has been effective at getting allies to step up. If scrimping on defence is indeed what troubles America, the solution is on its way: Europe will promise to spend much more on defence at a NATO summit in June.

The second theory of MAGA Euro-hostility is more worrying. According to this school, the invective directed at Europe is about more than freeloading on defence. After all, America’s Asian allies also underspend on their armed forces but are facing no such abuse. Rather, Europe is being punished for its crime of lèse-Amérique. By banging on about global norms, Europeans are an irritant to might-makes-right Trumpians. How dare the EU regulate Big Tech? How dare Denmark think Greenland would not be better off in American hands? Europe’s role should be to play second fiddle, or, better yet, pipe down. On this reading, to be a better ally, Europe would have to bend the knee, for example by helping constrain China at Washington’s behest. This may be humiliating, if not downright unrealistic in the case of ceding Greenland, which is not Denmark’s to give away. But seasoned EU diplomats think it may provide the basis for a fraught but workable relationship.

Yet some European officials perceive a third kind of MAGA animosity, one they are powerless to do anything about. For this contempt is aimed at a continent that exists only in the imagination of Fox News presenters (as Mr Hegseth once was). Europhobes of this type see it as a flailing continent on the economic skids, one bent on demographic suicide, where the only people who enjoy free speech are Muslim extremists imposing sharia on a woke populace. For them, Europe is a cautionary tale: what America might degenerate into without Mr Trump’s “help”. This fantastical vision offers Europe no way to indulge America, short of handing over power to the likes of Alternative for Germany, a Nazi-adjacent party bafflingly admired by Mr Vance.

Who do you think we are?

To be fair to the MAGA Euro-bashers, their spite towards Europe is reciprocated—as any leak of European leaders’ candid Signal chats about Mr Trump and his team would probably attest.
Without any certainty as to why they are loathed in Washington, Europeans are falling back on their old diplomatic instincts: keep engaging and don’t despair. Sometimes it works. On March 29th Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president, spent hours playing golf with Mr Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Soon after, Mr Trump declared himself “pissed off” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin for failing to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine—a useful win for Europe. Many hope America might still give concrete support to a Europe-led “reassurance force” in Ukraine. Occasionally, the two old allies still manage to find one another, through the bitter mist

sábado, 1 de febrero de 2025

UK and the European Union

Read these articles:

1)article 27 (Britain and the European Union) (outdated but good)

2)Brexit: All you need to know about the UK leaving the EU (BBC)

3) Brexit, the most pointless, masochistic ambition in our country's history, is done (Ian McEwan)

4) For Europe, the Brexit deal makes the best of a bad business (The Economist, 2021)

Watch:

5) Brexit explained for confused Americans (WT)

6) Brexit: A history of the rocky relationship between the UK and EU

Updates

2022 Post-Brexit Guide (Euronews)

2023 The Northern Ireland Protocol and Windsor Framework

2024, Why most people regret Brexit: A majority of British voters now believe the split was a mistake

Complementary materials:

Better Off Out or In? (BBC)

Brexit with John Oliver (1)

Brexit with John Oliver (2)

Brexit with John Oliver (3)

Brexit explained (CNN)

Timothy Garton Ash

viernes, 31 de enero de 2025

UK: North and South

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNdVPQps5JM&ab_channel=JOE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT0ay9u1gg4

miércoles, 22 de enero de 2025

Beginning of classes: February 4

miércoles, 15 de enero de 2025

Course Description

G1808 “EUROPEAN CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION”

(DIPLOMA IN SPANISH HISTORY AND CIVILIZATION, UNIVERSIDAD DE CANTABRIA)

ECTS

Taught by

Prof. Dr. Jesús Ángel González, gonzalezja@unican.es

Class Blog: http://europeancultureandcivilization.blogspot.com/

Course language

English

Schedule

Classes: Wed 12:30-13:30, Thu 10:30-12:30

Content

The course will deal with the concepts of culture and European unity and diversity. Therefore, the different concepts of culture and the diverse dimensions of Europe (geographical, historical, religious, economic, cultural) will be analyzed and followed by an individual analysis of the culture and civilization of some specific European countries. The course will also present key facts about the creation and development of the European Union. Some of the topics to be covered are: Origin of the EU, how the EU works, monetary union, European issues and priorities, the EU in the world, current developments and future possibilities.

Assessment

-Class attendance and participation 10% (MINIMUM 80 %)

-Oral presentation 30% Students will choose one European country and prepare an oral presentations about its culture and civilization.. The presentations should last between 20 and 30 minutes and some of the following fields could be covered: Background, history, geography, languages, sociological overview, education, religion, economy, politics, the Media, cultural conflicts, cultural products (Literature, Cinema, Art). Special emphasis should be placed on each student’s field of expertise or University Major.

- Reading and Writing Assignments: 20 %: Students are expected to read a number of articles, discuss them in class and hand in article reviews.

- Final paper: “What is then a European?" 40 %. Remember that the university uses a detection system ("Turnitin Integrity") to check for plagiarism and inappropiate use of AI.

Teaching methods

Participants will be encouraged to actively participate in class and share their experiences and ideas with others to explore new ways of thinking. The course will be conducted using a mixture of lectures; small group activities; practical exercises, facilitated discussions and oral presentations.

Teaching material

§ Core Texts: Class materials to be picked up by students at the Interfacultativo Copy Centre

§ Additional material:

Barbour, P. (Ed.) The European Union Handbook. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. 1996

Chernotsky, Harry & Heidi Hobbs. Crossing Borders: International Studies for the 21st Century.

CQ Press, 2015. Díez Medrano, J. Framing Europe. Princeton University Press. 2003.

González López, Jesús A. An Introduction to North American Culture and Literature.

Santander: TGD, 2006.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London: Penguin, 2011.

Hartley, Emma. 50 Facts you Need to Know: Europe. Icon Books: 2006.

Marshall, Tim. Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need To

Know About Global Politics. London: Elliot & Thompson, 2015.

Oxford Guide to British and American Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream. London: Polity, 2005.

viernes, 12 de abril de 2024

Why most people regret Brexit: A majority of British voters now believe the split was a mistake

A majority of British voters now believe the split was a mistake

Apr 11th 2024| (The Economist)

It is rare for voters to change their minds soon after referendums. Experience from Canada to Scotland, from Norway to Switzerland, suggests rather that opinions tend to move in favour of a referendum result more than they swing against it. But Brexit seems to be an exception. Since the 52-48% vote in favour of leaving the European Union in June 2016, the majority view among Britons has shifted, and especially so in the past two years, towards the conclusion that the decision was wrong (see chart).

One way to take the temperature is to visit two English towns called Richmond which voted in very different ways in 2016. In Richmond-upon-Thames in London, which voted 69-31% to remain in the eu, opinion has hardened. Gareth Roberts, the Liberal Democrat council leader, notes that post-Brexit niggles such as longer border delays and more intrusive passport controls have helped to solidify local opposition. A Leave voter sitting by the river says he has not changed his mind, but that he is disappointed by the Tories’ failure to strike big trade deals outside the eu.

The other Richmond, in north Yorkshire, voted 57-43% for Brexit. One Leaver in the market square echoes his southern counterpart by insisting that he still supports Brexit but he complains that it has not been properly done and that immigration has surged despite repeated Tory promises to reduce it. A local bartender says that she voted instinctively to leave but that, were the referendum re-run, she would work harder to understand what it would really mean. Stuart Parsons, a former mayor of Richmond, claims that several friends have changed their minds, especially small farmers who feel betrayed by the Conservatives and now fret about future lost public subsidies.

Such anecdotes chime with polls across the country. Research by uk in a Changing Europe (ukice), a think-tank, finds that most voters have not in fact changed their minds since 2016. But because as many as 16-20% of those who voted to leave have switched sides, compared with only 6% of those who voted to remain, the balance has swung against Brexit. The passage of time is also having its inevitable effect: older voters were overwhelmingly keen to leave the eu and younger ones were fiercely opposed to the idea. Don’t-knows and those who did not vote in 2016 now tend to break strongly against Brexit.

Explanations abound for the disillusionment. Sir John Curtice, a leading pollster who works with ukice, points especially to gloom about the economy since 2016, which he says matters more than irritation over immigration. Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat mp for Richmond Park, reckons that outright dishonesty on the part of the Leave campaign is to blame. Peter Kellner, a political pundit and former president of YouGov, a polling group, suggests that many Brexit supporters had no idea what would happen if they actually won. That differs sharply from the run-up to most other constitutional referendums.

Changes in the political background matter as well. The Conservatives under Rishi Sunak, who happens to be the mp for Richmond in Yorkshire and is a keen supporter of Brexit, are associated in voters’ minds with the decision to Leave. Party disunity and the chaos of four prime ministers in five years have helped to discredit something with which the Tories are strongly identified.

Just as the Tories have helped tarnish views of Brexit, so Brexit is likely to hurt the Tories at the next election. A chunk of people who voted Leave in 2016 say there should still be long-term benefits from quitting the bloc but argue that too little has been done to realise them. This group now leans against the Tories and may even prefer the Reform Party, an insurgent right-wing party. In contrast, those who were against Brexit in 2016 think they were right to fear its economic impact; many who were Tory then now back Labour.

The anti-Brexit mood of a majority of voters is clear but that does not translate into a burning wish to refight old battles. Brexit may be unpopular but its political salience has faded. Even keen Remainers have doubts about the wisdom of starting a lengthy campaign to rejoin. The Labour Party’s decision to talk as little as possible about Brexit is understandable: the party hopes to regain “red-wall” seats in the north and the Midlands that backed Brexit in 2016 and then voted Tory in the 2019 general election.

But if and when Labour does take office, there will be political wriggle-room to improve relations with the eu. Some in the party talk not just of expanding today’s thin trade deal but of broader alignment with European rules. Tory attacks on such ideas as a betrayal of the 2016 vote are less likely to resonate when Brexit itself has lost its appeal for many.■

jueves, 18 de enero de 2024

Soft power: The Brussels Effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect#:~:text=The%20Brussels%20effect%20is%20the,its%20borders%20through%20market%20mechanisms.

European Movement International

https://europeanmovement.eu/

viernes, 29 de septiembre de 2023

EU Enlargement

EU Enlargement Will the EU get new members soon? Here’s what you need to know.

jueves, 15 de junio de 2023

"Social eating"

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-03-16-social-eating-connects-communities

martes, 13 de junio de 2023

Football and European identity

https://ruvid.org/ri-world/football-as-a-key-factor-in-shaping-a-unified-european-identity/

jueves, 11 de mayo de 2023

Germany’s Scholz says EU must reform before it can admit Ukraine

https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-scholz-say-eu-reform-admit-ukraine/

martes, 18 de abril de 2023

The Great Spanish Crash (BBC)

Watch this documentary and bring a concept map to class:

The Great Spanish Crash

A couple of examples of concept maps here: https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/using-concept-maps/

jueves, 13 de abril de 2023

Links about Spanish Character

Spain – A great place to live, a terrible place to work?

How to Be Spanish (The Times)

Spanish rude expressions

Estereotipos que NO son verdad

Estereotipos españoles que son ciertos (Huggington Post)

Extranjeros sobre España (Huffington Post)

Spain is Europe's leading economy, according to the Financial Times.

lunes, 16 de mayo de 2022

Putin's War Has Given Birth to Geopolitical Europe (JOSEP BORRELL)

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/geopolitical-europe-responds-to-russias-war-by-josep-borrell-2022-03

martes, 29 de marzo de 2022

Why Vladimir Putin has already lost this war (Yuval Noah Harari)

Why Vladimir Putin has already lost this war

sábado, 24 de abril de 2021

Scottish Independence?

Scottish independence?

jueves, 21 de enero de 2021

ARTICLE/CHAPTER REVIEW

TITLE
AUTHOR
READ BY
DATE
MAIN POINT(S)
INTERESTING IDEAS/DATA	- - - -
PERSONAL OPINION

sábado, 29 de febrero de 2020

Irish unification is becoming likelier

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/02/13/irish-unification-is-becoming-likelier

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/02/13/brexit-and-sinn-feins-success-boost-talk-of-irish-unification

lunes, 20 de enero de 2020

Presentations (30 %)

Students will choose one European country and prepare an oral presentation about its culture and civilization. The presentations should last around 20-30 minutes and some of the following fields could be covered: Background, history (5 meaningful events only), geography, languages, sociological overview, education, religion, economy, politics, the Media, cultural conflicts, cultural products (Literature, Cinema, Art), role in Europe. Special emphasis should be placed on cultural conflicts and on each student’s field of expertise (preferably their University Major).You need to choose a country and a date as soon as possible and then you have to attend one of the Wednesday tutorials to let me know about your ideas about the presentation.

How to give a presentation in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXVoT7VMCpM

5 steps to a killer opener: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEDcc0aCjaA

After delivering your presentation in class, you have to upload it on Moodle.

Reading and Writing Assignments (20%)

Students are expected to read the articles provided by the teacher in paper format, present some of them in class (when scheduled) and hand in (via Moodle) 10 article reviews (5-8 from the list in the class materials and 2-5 from the blog: 20 % of the final mark).

jueves, 20 de junio de 2019

Final paper (40 %)

Deadline for the final paper: June 2.

The final paper should be 5-10 pages long (2,000-4,000 words) and should involve some research as well as personal opinions. Don't forget to quote your sources and include a bibliography.You will find useful articles and book extracts in the set of photocopies as well as in the blog. Remember that the university uses a detection system ("Turnitin Integrity") to check for plagiarism and inappropiate use of AI.

The topic of the final paper is "What is then a European?"in response to J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur's definition of Americans: “What is then the American, this new man? He is either a European or the descendant of a European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country… He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world … The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions.
(J. HECTOR ST. JOHN DE CRÈVECOEUR Letters from an American Farmer, 1782)

American history and character have been fundamentally shaped by three important myths:

· The American Dream: the belief that their country offers the best opportunities for a good and successful life. A dream of freedom and opportunities. Anybody can get rich, anybody can become president. But there are some American nightmares, as many writers and film directors keep pointing out ...

· The Melting Pot: a phrase used to describe the

USA

as a country in which people from many different races and cultures are ‘melted’ together to form the American people.

· The Manifest Destiny, as we have already mentioned, is a phrase coined in the late 19^th century to justify the right of the US to own and occupy land across the continent to the Pacific Ocean, buying or stealing land from Europeans, Indians, Mexicans (California, Texas,...) or Spaniards (the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba). This idea is linked to the concept of the frontier (the border between settlements and wilderness), which has had a tremendous influence in the American psyche as shown in American popular culture (westerns).

These three myths are still alive in many ways and their effects can be seen in aspects such as the way the economy is handled (an extension of the concepts inherent to the American Dream), the problems with immigration and the ‘English Only’ movement (the Melting Pot), North-American foreign policy in Latin America (the Manifest Destiny), individualism, love of guns, the permanent conflict between nature and civilization or even the space race (the frontier).

Adapting these ideas to the European context, you can try to answer the following questions:

- What is then a European? is there such a thing as a European identity? How is it created? (You may think of the European Union and the monetary union, but also of the Council of Europe and other identity-forming elements like the Erasmus program, the Schengen agreement, the Cultural Capital of Europe, or even UEFA and the Eurovision song contest)

- What are the different European dimensions or ways to understand Europe? Think about Geography, History, Languages, Religion, Politics, Foreign Policy, Economy, Human Rights, etc.

- Is there a European Dream? What is it made of? Is it similar to the American Dream? Is there a social dimension vs. the more individualistic American dream?

- Is there a European Melting Pot? Should there be one? Is European diversity an asset or a curse? How should Europe deal with immigration (both from inside Europe and from outside Europe)?

- Is there a European Manifest Destiny? Was there one (in the 19th century colonialization period, for example)? How should Europe expand its influence outside its borders (think, for example, of democracy, human rights, prosperity, protection of the environment, the destruction of borders as a recipe for peace, the so-called social market...)?

- Think of your own experience: Do you have a European identity? Do you feel more European after your Erasmus experience?