Analysis

The downturn's made everyone worry more about money. But while we may want to be thriftier, Chris Bowlby discovers why we're stuck with high levels of personal and household debt. Credit has become a way of life and new technology makes it ever more accessible. We know we ought to save more for, say, old age, but pensions seem distant and a dodgy investment, while the government and others are des...

Something strange has been happening in the British economy. For over six years now, wages have fallen for most of us, which is unprecedented in British modern history. And despite the return of economic growth, wages still have not picked up. What has happened? And crucially is this a long term problem - is this the end of the pay rise? Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies,...

Why have the Tories attracted the label 'the nasty party'? Tory supporter Robin Aitken explores why the phrase took hold, and why it matters in key national debates today. Senior and influential figures in the Tory party's recent history offer revealing personal accounts of what they believe and how the party is perceived by the outside world. Producer: Chris Bowlby Editor: Hugh Levinson.

What is the best form of capitalism? The free-market form found in countries such as the UK and the United States, or the more collaborative model which is common across Northern Europe? Some British politicians, from both the left and right, are somewhat starry-eyed when it comes to the way other countries run their economy and have even suggested the UK could improve its lot by importing practic...

There's a new government in Kiev and Crimea is firmly in Russian hands. The political map of eastern Europe has changed dramatically in the last few months. But are Moscow's actions in the Ukraine crisis evidence of a long-term strategy to reassert Russia as a world power? Or are they the actions of a weakened government scrabbling to keep up with events? Edward Stourton investigates whether Vladi...

Tim Finch of the Institute of Public Policy Research asks if it is time for a fundamental rethink of the way we deal with refugees. He investigates the history of asylum as a political issue, the way asylum policy is implemented in the UK today, and discusses various views on how refugees could be handled in the future. Our current system was introduced in the early 2000s in response to public ang...

Evan Davis interviews economic historian Deirdre McCloskey in front of an audience at the London School of Economics, where she argues that poverty matters more than inequality. She describes how at the beginning of the 19th century most people who had ever lived had survived on $3 a day. Today, on average, people in Western Europe and North America live on over $100 a day. Although Professor McCl...

American economist Hyman Minsky died in 1996, but his theories offer one of the most compelling explanations of the 2008 financial crisis. His key idea is simple enough to be a t-shirt slogan: "Stability is destabilising". But TUC senior economist Duncan Weldon argues it's a radical challenge to mainstream economic theory. While the mainstream view has been that markets tend towards equilibrium an...

(Image credit: Jerry Nelson) Jo Fidgen interviews Eldar Shafir, professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, and co-author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much in front of an audience at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. Jo will explore the book's key idea: that not having enough money or time, shapes all of our reactions, and ultimately ou...

Owen Bennett-Jones asks if the real beneficiaries of the multiple failures of the Arab revolutions are the Islamist militants both of al-Qaeda and its increasingly violent allies. Does the West's tacit support for the reassertion of military control in Egypt send a powerful message to would-be Islamists - that they will never be allowed to achieve power through the ballot box? Producer: Leo Hornak...

Is there any such thing as unionism, and what is the case for the union? On September 18th, Scotland will vote in a referendum on whether to become independent. Supporters have been setting out their visions of how Scotland could be transformed. But what about those who want to keep Scotland within the United Kingdom? They've picked away at potential practical problems with independence - on shari...

Should we use chance to solve some of our most difficult political dilemmas? From US Green Cards to school place allocation, lotteries have been widely used as a means of fairly resolving apparently intractable problems. Jo Fidgen asks whether the time has come to consider whether more of society's problems might be solved by the luck of the draw. Producer: Leo Hornak.

The wish to be anonymous in our dealings with private companies or governments, in commenting on the news or in daily life seems to be increasing. For some, anonymity is an ironic response to the cult of celebrity that usually preoccupies us. For others, being anonymous enables us to reject the endless celebration of the individual that characterises our times and instead to find comfort and ease...

Since the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington DC, the ultra-conservative Wahhabi branch of Islam has often been cited by critics and commentators as the ideology of Islamic extremists around the world today. But can 21st Century terrorism really be blamed on the teachings of this 18th Century sect? In this edition of Analysis, Edward Stourton asks what is - and what isn't - Wahhabism? He explo...

In a recent Newsnight interview, the comedian Russell Brand predicted a revolution. His comments entertained many and became the most-watched political interview of 2013. But between the lines, Brand was also giving voice to the populist resurgence of a serious but controversial idea: anarchism. The new "anarcho-populism" is the 21st century activist's politics of choice. In evidence in recent stu...

Andrew Brown asks if the Church of England has become fatally disconnected from society.

Renowned social theorist Roberto Unger believes that left-of-centre progressives - his own political side - lack the imagination required to tackle the fundamental problems of society. In the run-up to the US presidential elections of 2012, he declared that his former student Barack Obama "must be defeated". Professor Unger argued that President Obama had failed in his first term in office to adva...

The French are far more attached to the idea of a centralised, big state than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. The philosophy behind it, Colbertism, holds that the economy of France should serve the state and that the state should direct the economy. But as France's big state looks less affordable, some French intellectuals are arguing that it is time that French identity became less tied to the di...

In America, there is talk of a "metropolitan revolution" as big cities reinvent themselves. Matthew Taylor asks if Britain too can transform its economy by setting city halls free. In America, there's a growing realisation that the old economic model, based on every city aiming for "a Starbucks, stadia and stealing business," has failed to revive urban economies. But now cities such as Denver, Col...

Syria's opposition movements comprise a diverse range of political and armed groups. But how do they differ in terms of their ideology, their modus operandi and in their vision for a post-conflict Syria? Edward Stourton investigates the numerous alternatives to President Assad and assesses which groups are gaining or losing influence on the ground after more than two years of bloody fighting. The...

Quantitative Easing was the drug prescribed by economists to keep Western economies functioning in a moment of crisis. Sunday Telegraph economic commentator Liam Halligan argues that the policy of money creation has now become a dangerous addiction. Interviewees include: Dr Adam Posen, President of the Petersen Institute for International Economics in Washington DC Stephen King, Chief Economist of...

Charities have been drawn into the world of outsourced service provision, with the state as their biggest customer and payment made on a results basis. It is a trend which is set to accelerate with government plans to hand over to charities much of the work currently done by the public sector. But has the target driven world of providing such services as welfare to work support and rehabilitating...

Last June, Edward Snowden, a man still in his twenties with, as he put it, "a home in paradise", went on the run. He took with him vast amounts of secret information belonging to the US government's security services. Snowden holds libertarian - or anti-statist - views. He believes the American government's pervasive surveillance activities which he revealed break the law but are also morally wron...

Barely a year after Egypt's post-revolution elections were held, millions of protestors took to the streets to demand the resignation of President Mohammed Morsi. After a short stand-off with army leaders, he was removed from power in what many describe as a coup d'etat. The subsequent clashes between Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood supporters and security forces have proved violent and bloody and t...

With huge concern over tax avoidance, tax officials are the latest to be given increased powers of discretion. They will be able to penalise people who have obeyed the letter of the law, but who have contravened the spirit of the tax code - as determined by the officials themselves, based on certain criteria. The use of official discretion is now applying across the UK's legal systems, from areas...