Francis Fukuyama, the chairman of the board at TAI, spoke today at the New America Foundation about his new book, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. Here’s a recording of the event.

Thanks to fracking, America is a major global supplier of oil and gas, and that has both economic and geopolitical benefits.

You know things are not going very well for your Middle East policy when Jimmy Carter comes swinging for you.

The states that gave the most to charity in 2012 voted for Romney, and the heightened religiosity of red states may be what spurs them to be so generous. Religion encourages charity, and the increasing marginalization of religious institutions should worry us all.

China finishes building a runway on a disputed Paracel Island while the Philippines works to make its case against Chinese expansionism to the UN. Asian geopolitics is still a high-stakes and dangerous contest, no matter how distracted the West gets.

Americans could learn a lot about consumer-directed health care from the successes of other countries, if only cherished health care myths didn’t blind us to those lessons. In the latest issue of the magazine, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry dissects those myths, and points to a way forward for health care reform.

A group of progressive Methodists, accompanied by similar-minded other Protestants and Catholics, signed an “Open Letter to President Obama” earlier this summer warning against intervention in the Middle East, even as congress and public opinion have been moved toward action. Are they “speaking truth to power”, or just talking to themselves?

The Philadelphia school reform commission has thrown down the gauntlet in its fight with the teachers’ union over health insurance contributions.

In a sharp editorial, the Financial Times outlines some of the fundamental inconsistencies with Germany’s clean energy transition—most notably Merkel’s decision to phase out nuclear power, an effectively zero-carbon energy source.

The U.S. needs to act quickly to stop the Islamic State from overrunning the Kurds in the Syrian border town of Kobani. The fall of Kobani would have a devastating impact not just on the Kurds in the region, but on the credibility of America’s anti-ISIS strategy as well.