Briefing

Myanmar

The mess that the army has made

Brutality and neglect by Myanmar's military regime have created a pariah state with a wretched and desperate people

First among equals

Our sixth and final merger brief shows why true mergers of equals are rare. The union of Citicorp and Travelers, initially equal partners, became a takeover as one of its co-chief executives took sole command

One house, many windows

The modern media company is based on the notion of offering one piece of content to different audiences. But, as our fifth merger brief, on the union of Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting System shows, combining media folk is like herding cats. Will the latest deal, with AOL, be different?

Building a new Boeing

Our fourth merger brief explores what happens in an industry where government is the marriage broker. Was Boeing wise to team up with McDonnell Douglas when that company’s biggest customer had cut its spending in half?

A Bavarian botch-up

Our third merger brief is a reminder that, when couples mate in a hurry for the wrong reasons, things can go wrong—as two Bavarian banks proved when they formed HypoVereinsbank

The DaimlerChrysler emulsion

Our second merger brief asks whether cross-border deals are different from other mergers, or just harder to carry out. DaimlerChrysler may offer an answer

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