American Affairs

American Affairs is a quarterly publication focused on public policy and political ideas. It was established to create a space for individuals who think that traditional political parties are not addressing the critical issues our nation faces today. Outdated beliefs and expectations from past decades limit our political conversations. The extreme partisanship in our politics often hides a deeper conformity and lack of critical thinking in our discussions. In contrast, American Affairs aims to foster a more meaningful dialogue about the core challenges and divisions of our era.

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Reconfiguring Real Estate Ownership for Better Urban Governance

2 months ago | americanaffairsjournal.org | Chris Lehman

American cities are more productive than ever. They facilitate world-changing innovation in information technology, life sciences, and finance, generating enormous wealth. Despite this, they are plagued by serious problems. Crime, low school quality, poor governance, and high housing costs combine to create a quality of life that is significantly lower than pre-tax incomes and overall economic activity would suggest.
Time Is Never Time at All: Why the 1990s Matter

Nov 20, 2024 | americanaffairsjournal.org | Oliver Traldi |Terry Anderson |John Ganz

REVIEW ESSAYWhy the Nineties Matterby Terry H. AndersonOxford University Press, 2024, 360 pagesWhen the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990sby John GanzFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024, 432 pagesCalendars to the contrary, most people who talk about the 1990s close the decade with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
How the West Was Lost

Nov 20, 2024 | americanaffairsjournal.org | Krzysztof Tyszka-Drozdowski |Emmanuel Todd

REVIEW ESSAYLe Défaite de l’Occidentby Emmanuel ToddGallimard, 2024, 384 pagesEmmanuel Todd’s latest book, La Défaite de l’Occident (The Defeat of the West), begins by listing the many surprises of the war in Ukraine. First, the war erupted in Europe, the paradise where history was supposed to have ended for good. The second surprise is that the war in Ukraine has relatively little to do with Europe; the decisive actors are Russia and the United States.
The Evolution of China’s Semiconductor Industry under U.S. Export Controls

Nov 20, 2024 | americanaffairsjournal.org | Paul Triolo

Since I last wrote about China’s responses to U.S. export controls in these pages, in February 2024, much has changed, both in terms of U.S. export control measures and the situation on the ground in China. The relative strength of China’s domestic semiconductor industry has also received substantially more media attention.
America, China, and the Death of the International Monetary Non-System

Nov 20, 2024 | americanaffairsjournal.org | Russell Napier

Something changed in America in the 1990s. The U.S. federal funds rate began a decline from above 5 percent to reach the effective zero bound by 2009. U.S. ten-year Treasury yields declined from above 6 percent to levels not even recorded during the Great Depression.
Democracy versus Democracy?: Elections after Neoliberalism

Nov 20, 2024 | americanaffairsjournal.org | David Singh Grewal

In the United States as well as abroad, this is an election year—what has been called a “global election supercycle.” By the end of 2024, countries holding almost half the world’s population will have gone to the polls to vote in major elections: general elections, presidential elections, and elections for the European Parliament.
Reforming Skilled Immigration for an Era of Great Power Competition

Nov 20, 2024 | americanaffairsjournal.org | Connor O’Brien |Divyansh Kaushik

Two years since the signing of the chips and Science Act, the United States still finds itself in a highly contested race across a broad range of strategic technologies, particularly against China. Congress has allocated billions in subsidies for critical industries like semiconductors, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, while the Biden administration has escalated export controls to counter Chinese rivals.
Foreign Agents and American Nonprofits

Nov 20, 2024 | americanaffairsjournal.org | Michael E. Hartmann

REVIEW ESSAYForeign Agents: How American Lobbyists and LawmakersThreaten Democracy around the Worldby Casey MichelSt. Martin’s Press, 2024, 368 pagesEstablishment philanthropy finds itself on the defensive, as it should. More and more activities of the largest tax-incentivized nonprofits are coming into question. Populist progressives are against Big Philanthropy’s exercise of power on behalf of an oligarchy that benefits from and protects the sector’s status and legal structure.
Why Are Start-Ups Losing So Much Money?

Nov 20, 2024 | americanaffairsjournal.org | Jeffrey Funk

Financial losses for today’s start-ups are much more common than they were decades ago, and the losses are much bigger. VCs are making back less from their initial investments than at any point since the global financial crisis of 2007–9. According to a study by Jay Ritter, only 22 percent of start-ups were profitable in 2021, the year of peak IPOs, versus 80 percent in the early 1980s.1 And today’s start-ups are not becoming more profitable over time.
Nietzsche’s Eternal Return in America

Nov 19, 2024 | americanaffairsjournal.org | Sheluyang Peng

One day in the early 2000s, a goth teenager by the name of Sohrab Ahmari was perusing the shelves of a Salt Lake City bookstore when his gaze landed upon Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. For a misfit atheist adolescent looking for meaning in life outside the bleak conditions of the majority-Mormon trailer park he resided in, the encounter turned out to be love at first sight.