India's Dalits (former untouchables), for example, who have empowered themselves through electoral politics, have been suspicious of the campaign's motives.

BBC: Will India's anti-corruption campaign implode?

Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate and writer on the politics of famine, says rising demand (for example, from the Asian middle classes) and not failing productivity is the main reason for the current crisis.

ECONOMIST: The world food summit

For Israelis, the roiling debate on Iran is just another example of the way Israeli politics work.

CNN: Israeli politics in tailspin over Iran

Allowing East Germans to watch American soap operas on West German television, for example, seems to have acted as a form of pacification that actually reduced people's interest in politics.

ECONOMIST: Why dictators are going digital

For example: Men, habituated to teaming up in forms of disciplined aggression and governance (hunting, war, politics), possess well-developed, wary instincts about other men, including their qualities of leadership.

CNN: Lance Morrow: Among white men, Gore needs to pick up good vibrations