President Mintimer Shaimiev, for instance, has turned Tatarstan into a kind of mini-state, complete with its own economic policy.

ECONOMIST: Devolution is not always good for democracy

One is Rhode Island, which in two decades lost 10% of its population, much of it to estate-tax-free Florida, according to the Ocean State Policy Research Institute.

FORBES: Retire To Pittsburgh?

To pull the state out of its hole, Mr McCain offers low taxes, retraining and an all-inclusive energy policy.

ECONOMIST: Michigan is at the heart of the debate over the economy

Among the entities expected, until recently, to be subordinated to State's managerial and budgetary control -- and inevitably, therefore, to its policy dictates -- is the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

And Washington, with its foreign-policy pivot to Asia, will devote less attention to the conflicts that threaten the Jewish state, even as the U.S. remains the ultimate guarantor of Israeli security.

WSJ: Three Troubled Allies, One Superpower

Its peace policy is now hardly distinguishable from that of Kadima or indeed Meretz: a two-state solution based on the 1967 border, with land swaps and the retention of the bigger Jewish settlement blocks, as outlined by Mr Barak when he was prime minister from 1999-2001.

ECONOMIST: The party of the old establishment is dying under Ehud Barak

In a coincidental twist, just before our list came out Augusta National Golf Club announced earlier this week that it is admitting former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to the club, thus ending its males-only policy.

FORBES: Thoughts On Women, Power and Work

China's strategy to ramp up commercial links has so far failed to elicit meaningful reform, and analysts say the new regime will be equally wary of introducing economic freedoms that could undermine a state policy of "juche" (self-reliance), and total control over its citizens' lives.

WSJ: Trade Binds North Korea to China