ISSUE 150 SEPTEMBER 2008

Contributors to this issue

OLIVER AUGUST has been a Times correspondent in New York and Beijing

PHILIP BALL is a science writer

PETER BAZALGETTE was an independent television producer for 20 years

TOM BURKE is the co-founder of Third Generation Environmentalism

MARK COUSINS ’s collected Prospect columns are forthcoming from Wallflower Press

THOMAS DE WAAL is Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting

PHILIP DELVES BROUGHTON is a journalist and author

JONATHAN DERBYSHIRE is a writer

RICHARD DOWDEN is director ofthe Royal African Society

ALEXANDER FISKE-HARRISON is a writer and actor

TOM GALLAGHER teaches politics at Bradford University

EDWARD GLAESER is a professor of economics at Harvard University

DAVID GOLDBLATT is the author of The Ball is Round (Penguin)

AC GRAYLING is a philosopher

TIM HARFORD is an FT columnist

CAR HILLS is a former editor of PEN News

JOHN HOLBO is a professor of philosophy at the National University of Singapore

ED HUSAIN is author of The Islamist (Penguin)

WILL HUTTON is chief executive of the Work Foundation

MARTIN KETTLE is a Guardian columnist

MARK KITTO runs a caféé near Shanghai

SALLY LAIRD is a writer and translator

NAM LE ’s short story collection The Boat is published by Canongate

BEN LEWIS presents BBC4’s Art Safari

GWYNETH LEWIS is a poet and writer

ALEXANDER LINKLATER is associate editor of Prospect

PETE LUNN is an economist at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin

ALEX MCBRIDE is a criminal barrister

ARKADY OSTROVSKY is the Economist ’s bureau chief in Moscow

EDWARD SKIDELSKY is a lecturer in philosophy at Exeter University

IAN STEWART is a mathematician

HUGH WILLIAMSON is Europe news editor of the Financial Times

contents

Coverstory 30Flirting with Stalin While 1917 saw a cultural flowering in Russia,the post-Soviet intelligentsia has failed to articulate a liberal vision and produced only shallow art.Little wonder,says Arkady Ostrovsky,that Putin has been able to exploit nostalgia for Soviet “greatness”

Opinions

16A falling house of cards The Crosby report shows that the market can’t solve the mortgage crisis alone. Time for the state to step in. WILL HUTTON

17No Left Bank on the Clyde The rise of the SNP has not led to a renaissance of Scotland’s political culture. TOM GALLAGHER

18Why Hamlet’s heirs are happy A trusting society makes today’s Danes rather jolly. SALLY LAIRD

20The mill towns round our neck A think tank report has been attacked for poo-pooing urban regeneration. But it is right. EDWARD GLAESER

21British subjects—not God’s Why we need the anti-Islamist Quilliam Foundation. ED HUSAIN

22It takes a village In the Caucasus, all politics are local. THOMAS DE WAAL

Debate

26Behavioural economics: is it such a big deal? Behavioural economics is becoming increasingly fashionable. Does it represent a revolution in economic thinking? Or does it merely provide a few handy insights into the more irrational behaviours of individuals? PETE LUNN vsTIM HARFORD

Essays

34Harvard loses its lustre An MBA from Harvard Business School used to buy entry into the financial and political elite. But as America’s economic lead starts to fade, so too does the value of its most prestigious powerhouse. PHILIP DELVES BROUGHTON

38The return of goodness Contemporary liberalism’s insistence that morality is a mere matter of rights and obligations empties life of its ethical meaning. We need a return to virtue ethics. EDWARD SKIDELSKY

42An alien inheritance Colonial powers saddled African states with an unsuitable system of “winnertakes-all”democracy. This has been a failure. It is time to develop an African form of democracy. RICHARD DOWDEN

Witness

48A noble death Bullfighting is reviled by many as cruel. But it is not merely a gaudy circus spectacle; at its best it is an art form. Can aesthetics justify the suffering of the animal? ALEXANDER FISKE-HARRISON

Portrait

54Hyun Jeong-eun Hyundai’s boss shattered the glass ceiling when she succeeded her husband at the South Korean conglomerate. Now she’s helping to open up the even more chauvinist North. OLIVER AUGUST

4 Prospect SEPTEMBER2008