Daniel Drezner - Is the world cracking up?

      This article didn't really astound and woo me with witty phrases and videos, but it did interest me. Firstly, for how it started out. It was a list of things going on in the world today, personifying nations. I use that, the personification of nations, to help myself understand things I learn and talk about in Model UN. It's a great way to help the visualization of the world's state. I appreciate his use of it, obviously.
     The other reasons I found it interesting were, 1) the quote he picked, 2) the way he leaves it open to interpretation at the end, and 3) the way he connects with the reader. 
     The quote he chose was from a working paper by Henry Farell on "what causes societal unrest in developed economies", and is as follows:

From the end of the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1930s to anti-government demonstrations in Greece in 2010-11, austerity has tended to go hand in hand with politically motivated violence and social instability. In this paper, we assemble crosscountry evidence for the period 1919 to the present, and examine the extent to which societies become unstable after budget cuts. The results show a clear positive correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability. We test if the relationship simply reflects economic downturns, and conclude that this is not the key factor.

     I thought it was interesting since he himself draws correlations between the Great Depression and the current economic recession earlier in the post. He also kind of uses this quote as a way to say, without saying, what he's afraid will happen in our future, "politically motivated violence and social instability". Which, isn't to say that we aren't already there, but at least America hasn't experienced the particularly violent side of the die just yet. Though, as stated, Britain is, indeed, "on fire".
     I think it's refreshing that an author chooses to invite his readers to discuss the issue in the comments, and not only this, but even shares that he's posting a counterargument later. Unlike a certain New York Times columnist whose book we were subjected to, Mr. Drezner manages to display two sides to one story. Kudos.
     Mr. Drezner is a talented man when it comes to connections with the reader. He seems like a genuine person when he writes, which is something I think a lot of us forget to do when we write for an audience. The voice he uses to describe and explain his thoughts helps us to put ourselves into the issues he chooses, from his perspective. He also mentions that he is, as most people not living under rocks are, scared for the future. It's nice to know I'm not alone, Mr. Drezner.