Publications

Israel has experienced a year full of positive and negative developments. 2021 was characterized by the last of four elections in two years; confrontation with Gaza; the fragility of the education system, with teaching split between in person instruction and online learning;...

In the final stretch of the Moon Jae-in administration – with presidential elections held in March 2022 – several long-term tasks prioritized and set forth by President Moon in his 100 Policy Tasks (2017) and New Deal (2020) remained relevant and important for the future of...

After 2008, Italy experienced one of its most serious economic crises, with negative effects on industrial performance, employment and government budgets. National and international confidence in the economy and in the ability of the Italian state to face big external shocks...

Undoubtedly, democracy in Sweden remains robust; the country continues to score highly across the gamut of sustainable governance indicators, with little change since the previous report. This mundane observation becomes quite salient if contextualized in the second year of...

Between July 2018 and December 2021, Czechia was governed by a minority coalition, including Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s Movement of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) and the Social Democrats (ČSSD), and backed by the Communist Party (KSČM) until April 2021.

Bulgaria was witness to several unprecedented developments in 2021. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Bulgaria held one presidential election in November 2021 and three parliamentary elections (in April, July and November of the same year). The country failed, twice, to elect a...

Faced with the first recorded case of COVID-19 on 1 March 2020, the Czech government implemented a state of emergency with quite stringent lockdown measures almost immediately and quite effectively. Fear was inspired by news reports of the pandemic in Italy. As of mid-April,...

South Korea was comparably successful both in limiting the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and in limiting its social and economic consequences. As of 15 January 2021, the country had registered 71,820 confirmed Corona cases and 1,217 deaths, and the economy was expected...

The coronavirus crisis has been an unusual event, with no obvious blueprint for action in terms of health or economic policies. Information and knowledge regarding how the pandemic would unfold was and remains incomplete; moreover, lockdown-style restrictions are well...

Spain was one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19 worldwide, both in terms of infections and deaths. The number of coronavirus cases recorded in Spain since the beginning of the pandemic officially exceeded two million at the beginning of January 2021 and the pandemic...