Briefing
The Digital dilemma
Our new series of six briefs looks at big mergers of the recent past: what was the strategy behind them, and did it work? We start with Compaq’s ill-fated takeover of Digital Equipment, the biggest merger in the history of the computer industry. As companies so often do, Compaq tried to buy a new future. So was the deal bad strategy, or just bad timing?
POLITICS BRIEF
Ex uno, plures
The sixth and last article in our series on the mature democracies asks whether they are in danger of being strangled by lobbyists and single-issue pressure groups
POLITICS BRIEF
The people’s voice
Is the growing use of referendums a threat to democracy or its salvation? The fifth article in our series on changes in mature democracies examines the experience so far, and the arguments for and against letting voters decide political questions directly
POLITICS BRIEF
The gavel and the robe
Established and emerging democracies display a puzzling taste in common: both have handed increasing amounts of power to unelected judges. The fourth article in our series on changes in the mature democracies examines the remarkable growth and many different forms of judicial review
POLITICS BRIEF
You pays your money...
Political parties need increasing amounts of money. The third of our articles on the mature democracies in transition looks at how different countries are trying to let them have it without allowing the rich and powerful to buy undue influence
POLITICS BRIEF
Empty vessels?
Alexis de Tocqueville called political parties an evil inherent in free governments. The second of our briefs on the mature democracies in transition asks whether parties are in decline
POLITICS BRIEF
Is there a crisis?
After the collapse of communism, the world saw a surge in the number of new democracies. But why are the citizens of the mature democracies meanwhile losing confidence in their political institutions? This is the first in a series of articles on democracy in transition
EURO BRIEF
Eleven into one may go
The European Union’s new single currency, the euro, will replace 11 national currencies, from the D-mark to the Portuguese escudo, on January 1st. The first in a series of briefs looks at the background to this historic venture
A car is born
Choosing to launch a global product in an emerging market is risky. But Fiat had good reason to do so with the Palio