Last week we awarded our annual £500 prize for the best Loop blog piece in the previous calendar year, as judged by an independent jury. Here, Managing Editor Kate Hawkins presents the longlisted pieces — and revels who has taken this year's top spot
First ladies in Latin America are more than ceremonial figures. They influence public policy, advance political careers, and build power within the core of the executive branch – without a formal mandate, or accountability. Carolina Guerrero Valencia shows why ignoring them means misreading presidential power itself
Feminists all over Europe embrace solidarity as a form of political dissent – and face systematic repression as a result. Yet, Marta Rawłuszko argues, they continue to resist and offer deeply political and practical alternatives to capitalist and nation-state logics
New US-Africa health agreements promise funding and self-reliance. But many include clauses on data and pathogen sharing. Fubu Ngubu argues that such arrangements risk transforming health partnerships into exercises in digital extraction. African data is generating global value without fair returns for African nations
With Nicolás Maduro’s political weakening and the electoral victories of conservative parties in several Latin American countries, Alberto Ruiz-Méndez asks whether these developments signal the end of the wild years of populism. Here, he examines what the Latin American experience reveals about its limits
In this year’s election campaign, argue Katinka Linnamäki and Emilia Palonen, Orbán is facing a formidable, new force. Emerging from the Fidesz cadres in 2023, Péter Magyar launched his attack on Orbán. He has since managed to avoid many of the pitfalls of polarisation that have favoured Orbán previously
The recent rescue of a US airman from Iranian soil obscures a deeper truth. As contested casualty figures emerge from America’s war, Kandida Purnell argues that what we see, count, and mourn in war is never neutral. Rather, it is carefully governed through a longstanding necropolitical logic that shapes public perception and sustains conflict
France’s new nuclear posture and Russia’s nuclear build-up in Belarus have made Europe feel vulnerable. But, argues Olamide Samuel, stronger nuclear rhetoric will not make Europe safer or more independent. Europe’s real task is to rebuild arms control, consultation, and dialogue before nuclear danger becomes harder to contain
From the Strait of Hormuz to Europe’s gas crisis, energy dependence lets states project power through prices, not troops. This, says Ilan Kapoor, is reshaping geopolitical influence
As Hungary heads to parliamentary elections on 12 April, Cristian Pîrvulescu argues that the billboard campaign targeting Zelensky is not merely anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. Rather, it is the latest iteration of a calculated antisemitic strategy, rooted in the 'Horthy tradition', that has powered Fidesz through four consecutive victories
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