Commentary and Analysis

Transatlantic leaders can share ideas, tools, and strategies to help bridge economic divides between struggling heartland communities and thriving cities.

Though working-class voters continue to be disillusioned, place-based investments can help restore confidence and heal our polarized politics.

Nonresident Fellow John Austin and Elaine Dezenski unpack how domestic investments can be creative tools to strengthen democracy.

In promoting economic renewal in industrial heartland regions, leaders must avoid language that condemns these regions and their citizens to passivity.

“Pro-immigration advocates should lead with comprehensive immigration reform as a way to restore order,” writes John Austin in TIME.

There are growing efforts on both sides of the Atlantic to diminish economic disparities between thriving global city regions and struggling communities in industrial heartlands.

By tying itself to China, Germany risks making its mistakes with Russia all over again, argues Senior Nonresident Fellow John Austin.

“Made in Democracy” is a better label than “Made in America” if the goal is to strengthen our collective Western economies as well as our political alliances.

John Austin argues that the Inflation Reduction Act should, instead of requiring “domestic” content, require “democratic” content from allies around the globe.

The post-industrial communities of the Midwest are shaking off their Rust Belt label to emerge as leaders in the blue and green economies.