Medium in Conversation

A Political Scientist Explains Why We’re Not So Doomed After All

Ian Bremmer and our own Garance Franke-Ruta go deep on the election, populism, and America in the world after Trump

Photo illustration; Image source: The Washington Post/Getty Images

This article is adapted from the first installment of a new live-event series called Medium in Conversation. Ian Bremmer is a New York Times bestselling author and the president of the Eurasia Group, a political risk-analysis firm. Garance Franke-Ruta is the executive editor of GEN. Bremmer and Franke-Ruta spoke in front of a Zoom audience on November 11, just a few days after Joe Biden was elected president.

GFR: Your firm, the Eurasia Group, is a political risk analysis firm. What is political risk analysis?

Ian Bremmer: It just basically means we want to understand how politics and the markets come together and provide that information to our clients. They come in all different shapes and sizes, but they’re all interested in how politics create outcomes that you otherwise wouldn’t expect. There’s no lobbying, there’s really no partisanship. You get found out very quickly if your analysis is politicized because you’ll be wrong. As a political scientist, who deeply cares about what’s happening in the world, but kind of doesn’t like…