Asthma is a common, serious and difficult-to-manage chronic health condition. In the U.S., 1 in 7 people are diagnosed with asthma, and that number is rising.
In that mix of research, a new pattern has emerged pointing to links between asthma and abuse by a current or former romantic partner. As surprising as that might sound, these links are important because intimate partner abuse is common in the U.S. An estimated 47% of women and 44% of men are physically or sexually victimized or stalked by intimate partners at some point in their lives.
As a psychologist and an asthma specialist, we have teamed up to learn more about asthma and intimate partner abuse.
And what we’re seeing has important implications for treatment.
The role of inflammation
To understand how factors such as obesity or extreme weather can result in asthma, researchers have focused on inflammation. Inflammation plays a key role in keeping humans and other animals healthy.
When pathogens such as viruses attack the body, or the body suffers an injury, the immune system responds with inflammation. This immediate, short-term response helps the body minimize damage to cells and fight infection. It’s also what causes the red hotness that surrounds a skin injury or bothersome symptoms when fighting a cold.
While short-term inflammation is critical to good health, the inflammation system can go awry. Chronic inflammation contributes to many kinds of diseases, including asthma.
People with asthma experience excess mucus, muscle tightness in the chest and difficult breathing, largely due to inflamed airways. blueringmedia/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Looking for other explanations
Despite significant advances in drug treatments for asthma, a majority of adults with the condition have uncontrolled asthma, which means more flare-ups and an increased chance of dying from the disease.
As researchers and medical providers have figured out that not everyone responds to common medications, they’ve turned to more personalized approaches to understanding asthma predictors.
That more personalized approach led one of us, Dr. Wang, to wonder whether intimate partner abuse might play a role in asthma for some of her patients. After all, intimate partner abuse is linked with a host of health problems and health care costs.
Using a large database that was representative of the U.S. population, one of us (Dr. Wang) led a team in 2021 that discovered intimate partner abuse was associated with worsened asthma attacks and symptoms. That study included over 2,600 adults and found that having asthma along with a history of intimate partner abuse meant significantly greater odds of asthma attacks, more frequent symptoms and greater impact of symptoms on daily life.
This pattern was true even for adults who were out of the abusive relationships for a year or more, suggesting a persistent effect of intimate partner abuse on asthma.
In addition, research showed that intimate partner abuse also affects the next generation. Multiple studies have shown increased rates of asthma in children of women who were abused by their intimate partners.
A new view of inflammation
So, does this mean that intimate partner abuse leads to chronic overinflammation, which in turn causes asthma? Not necessarily, according to another study we did.
We worked with a team of researchers to recruit 60 adults with uncontrolled asthma into our study and examined many different markers of inflammation in the blood. Importantly, about half of those adults told us they had been abused by an intimate partner at some time in their lives. And about half said they had not.
First, we looked at the traditional types of inflammation studied in prior asthma research, including those targeted by currently available treatments. On measure after measure, our team found that patients with histories of intimate partner abuse had lower inflammation than those without histories of abuse, despite having uncontrolled asthma.
Surprised by this finding, we tested whether other factors that have been linked with asthma could better explain what we found. However, the pattern was still there – even when we took into account factors such as gender, obesity, anxiety and depression.
Next, we looked closely at the histories of abuse that patients reported. Most were out of the abusive relationship for more than a year. Therefore, these new findings offer additional evidence that intimate partner abuse can affect people’s health long after the trauma has ended.
Ultimately, these findings have important implications for public health and the treatment of asthma. Current asthma treatments target specific types of overinflammation. However, survivors of intimate partner abuse had lower levels of the types of inflammation that medications target. That could be key to understanding why survivors are more likely than other patients to have uncontrolled asthma even with treatment.
Our recent findings suggest that intimate partner abuse may be linked to asthma through other biological mechanisms, such as alternative or nontraditional types of inflammation. More research is needed to identify what drives asthma among survivors so more effective treatments can be developed.
Anne P. DePrince has received funding from the Department of Justice, National Institutes of Health, State of Colorado, and University of Denver. She has received honoraria for giving presentations and has been paid as a consultant. She has a book with Oxford University Press. She is an Advisory Group Member of the National Crime Victim Law Institute and a Senior Advisor to the Center for Institutional Courage.
Eileen Wang receives funding through her institution from the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology; Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute; Optimum Patient Care; GSK; Genentech; and Mount Sinai.
A street sign in Durban, South Africa, named for the merchant who helped forge Shaka Zulu’s fame abroad.Adam Rovner
Gales tore at the Mary’s sails, and surf crashed across the brig’s deck. Seventeen-year-old Nathaniel Isaacs tied himself to a railing to avoid being washed overboard. The Mary’s rudder soon splintered against a rocky bar at the entrance to Natal Bay – what is now Durban, South Africa. Helpless to maneuver, the ship took on water.
It was Oct. 1, 1825. Isaacs, a Jewish apprentice merchant from England, loosed the rope around his waist and jumped for his life, landing on the edge of the Zulu kingdom.
Though his name is virtually unknown today, Isaacs went on to play a pivotal role during the period of first contact between the Zulu and Europeans. His widely reviewed 1836 memoir, “Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa,” offers an eyewitness account of the Zulu under the indomitable King Shaka, who reigned from the 1810s to 1828. As I learned while researching my 2025 book, “The Jew Who Would Be King,” Isaacs’ writing shaped the mythology around Shaka Zulu, who endures as a Black nationalist icon.
He has been name-checked in hip-hop culture for decades, including by Nicki Minaj and Travis Scott. An enormous sculpture of Shaka marks the now defunct Shaka Zulu nightclub in London, while a bar keeps his name alive in Germany. In the U.S. he lends his name to a streetwear brand, and his fearsome scowl adorns stickers and T-shirts. Recently, a South African miniseries, well-received by scholars, has revived his legacy for a new generation.
‘Lost tribe’ speculation
The fact that an Anglo-Jewish castaway helped forge Shaka’s legend seems surprising today. But in 19th-century England, this unlikely pairing would have made perfect sense.
A print of Shaka, designed by William Bagg, which appeared in Nathaniel Isaacs’ memoir. Wikimedia Commons
Isaacs himself suspected the Zulu of having a Jewish origin. In one letter, he described Shaka as possessing facial features that revealed “a Hebrew expression” – wishful thinking that echoed a wider cultural belief.
In other ways, Isaacs was a sober observer, describing Zulu politics, military tactics, family dynamics and rituals. In his memoir he describes Shaka as a powerful empire-builder who shrewdly assimilated conquered tribes and territory into his realm – large portions of what is today eastern South Africa. Oral histories confirm Isaacs’ assessment, with one Zulu witness noting that Shaka “established colonies like the Europeans.” According to another, the Zulu king welcomed Isaacs and “deliberately made friends of the first settlers” who washed up on Zulu lands.
‘Savage’ stereotypes
Isaacs made the most of Shaka’s hospitality – a sharp contrast to the king’s supposed ferocity, which remains a core part of Shaka’s legend.
On his first visit to the “sanguinary chief,” as Isaacs referred to Shaka, he witnessed the king order the seizure of three disobedient subjects. Their necks were broken and they were dragged away to the bush to be impaled, their bowels punctured. Some scholars believe Isaacs sensationalized Shaka’s violence – such as historian Carolyn Hamilton – yet assert that “Travels and Adventures” remains one of the most valuable sources of Shakan history.
Zulu witnesses also emphasized Shaka’s brutality. According to Magidigidi, who was born during Shaka’s reign and served as a mat-bearer, a kind of military page, the king was known as “the wrong-doer who knows no law.”
Europeans commonly exaggerated the cruelties of African leaders, often portraying them as “savages.” To many colonial writers of the time, reason, science, private property and commerce marked “civilization.” Irrationality, superstition, communal living and barter marked “savagery” – though they believed cultures and individuals could progress from one state to the other.
Isaacs detailed Shaka’s “savage propensities,” indicating that he saw his own culture as superior. Chauvinism can, of course, easily transmute into coarse racism. Yet he also treated the Zulu with admiration, praising men and women for their athleticism, agility, bravery, cleanliness, discipline and hospitality.
Racial pseudoscience
Perhaps Isaacs’ praise of the Zulu derived in part from his Jewish identity; he too would have been dismissed as “savage” in England. As historian Derek Penslar writes, Jews were imagined as “crass and venal, lacking honor and virtue, in thrall to a slave religion or unrestrained passion.”
The presumed inferiority of Jews meant that European Christians often considered them “black,” both metaphorically and physically. Physician and early anthropologist James Cowles Prichard wrote that depending on the climate in which Jews lived they could become swarthy, even black. One implication of Prichard’s belief was that environment and culture shaped race, which was thought to be a more mutable category of identity than people often consider it today.
H. Rider Haggard, the English novelist and former civil servant in South Africa, played on this imagined connection between Jews and Black Africans. “King Solomon’s Mines,” published in 1885, depicts a breakaway Zulu enclave as the source for the biblical King’s riches.
Isaacs’ “Travels and Adventures” avoids such wild speculation, but he does note King Shaka’s fascination with Judeo-Christian theology. One night, Shaka invited him to speak about faith. “The religion of our nation taught us to believe in a Supreme Being,” Isaacs explained, a god who “created all things, and was the giver of light and life.” Shaka “seemed as if struck with profound astonishment” when Isaacs regaled him with the biblical account of creation.
Kingly legacy
Isaacs was equally spellbound by the Zulu. He hunted elephants for ivory, established a homestead and distinguished himself in battle. Shaka rewarded him with a praise name – a great honor – and the title of “induna,” a chieftain or headman.
Isaacs, in turn, lauded Shaka’s highly disciplined and militarized kingdom. Following his lead, Haggard lavished praise on Shaka’s genius, noting that the Zulu military was among “the most wonderful that the world has seen.” More recently, Marvel’s “Black Panther” features a former king of an isolationist African state jealously guarding its military supremacy. The king’s name? T’Chaka.
A monument marks Shaka’s grave in KwaDukuza, South Africa. Adam Rovner
African writers have likewise shrouded Shaka in legends of martial prowess. Zulu scholar, author and exiled African National Congress activist Mazisi Kunene’s epic “Emperor Shaka the Great,” published in 1979, hews to Isaacs’ depiction of a fierce yet noble Shaka.
Isaacs even appears in Kunene’s work, which advanced Zulu nationalism in the face of apartheid. The titular King Shaka declares that Isaacs “possessed true humanity,” and one of Shaka’s advisers counsels that Isaacs should be considered a Zulu and no longer be treated as “a foreigner or white man.”
Two hundred years after Isaacs’ shipwreck, much of Shaka’s legend can still be traced back to the travels and adventures of a teenage Jewish Zulu chief.
Adam L. Rovner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Boaz Atzili, Associate Professor of International Relations, American University School of International Service
President Donald Trump walks with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, on Oct. 13, 2025.AP Photo/Evan Vucci
In late October, both sides said they remained committed to peace, despite Israeli retaliation for the death of an Israeli soldier that killed 104 people, and despite the fact that the remains of 11 deceased hostages remain in Gaza.
Those setbacks aside, the new peace push is the most serious attempt so far to end the escalation of conflict that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militants on Israelis.
But what are the circumstances and actions that helped Trump advance such an agreement, the likes of which eluded former President Joe Biden? And what enabled Trump, working with a few close advisers and with mediators like Qatar and Egypt, to overcome the reluctance of Israel and Hamas?
The answer may have much to do with how Trump countered a phenomenon that political scientists call “spoiling.”
“Spoiling” in peace negotiations is defined by political scientist Stephen Stedman as actions employed by “leaders and parties who believe that peace emerging from negotiations threatens their power, worldview, and interests, and use violence to undermine attempts to achieve it.”
In regard to the Middle East, critics have long accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of playing this spoiler card throughout the war.
For two years, Netanyahu engaged in this kind of spoiling by, for example, staging high-level assassinations of Hamas leaders at a timing detrimental for any negotiation’s success.
Yet, Netanyahu also employed a more sophisticated method of spoiling, one that political science scholar Ehud Eiran and I are exploring in our research.
We argue that leaders can spoil negotiations not just by resorting to violent means, or by posing hard-line positions within the negotiation room. Additionally, spoilers can work in broad daylight and make the diplomacy less likely to succeed through a careful use of rhetoric and media. This decreases their own constituencies’ and the enemy’s likelihood of accepting This decreases the likelihood of their own constituencies or the enemy accepting a compromise. It’s what we call “public spoiling.”
Spoiling in broad daylight
Netanyahu used these public spoiling tactics again and again during ceasefire negotiations.
In early May 2024, for example, when ceasefire negotiations were getting into high gear and indications mounted that Hamas may accept the deal on the table, a statement from Netanyahu attributed to “a senior diplomatic source” – known in the Israeli media to mean the prime minister himself – stated that “the IDF will enter Rafah and destroy the Hamas battalions remaining there, whether there is a temporary truce for releasing the hostages or not,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Mourners attend the funeral of Israeli American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin in Jerusalem on Sept. 2, 2024. Goldberg-Polin was killed in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip. Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool via AP
Such declarations signaled to Hamas that Israel did not intend to keep its side of a deal. And it led the Palestinian militant organization to harden its position and further insist on a formal end of the war before all hostages were released.
In September 2024, Netanyahu used the Israeli military in another spoiler tactic after pressure mounted on him to yield to protesters’ calls for a ceasefire
Netanyahu then cited the document in a speech, claiming Sinwar designed his policy to use public pressure on Netanyahu. In short, he used this false publication, leaked allegedly by his own people, to suggest that the protesters were doing Hamas’ bidding. The protests subsequently decreased dramatically, and the pressure on Netanyahu to compromise subsided.
This pattern continued into the Trump administration.
‘No daylight’
U.S. decision-makers, from the president to negotiators in the Biden and Trump administrations, were no doubt aware of these practices. So why did they allow them to continue?
The answer is complicated. What has become clear, I believe, is that at the heart of the problem stands a single phrase: “no daylight.” It’s an oft-cited position of U.S. politicians to mean that, publicly at least, Israel and the United States act as if they are in complete agreement or alignment, with no policy differences between them.
Though a longtime ally of Israel, the U.S. used to be more forceful with Israel when the latter was deemed by Washington to have crossed the line or threatened important American interests in the region. That was evident when the U.S. imposed a ceasefire in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War despite Israeli opposition. It was also clear when the U.S. prevented an Israeli response to missiles that Iraq launched at it during the Gulf War in 1991.
But in the past few decades, a perception has taken hold in U.S. foreign policy circles that pressure on Israel’s government should only be done in private and that it should never include strong public rebuke.
Smoke and explosions rise inside the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, on March 17, 2024. AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File
Thus, even when, in June 2024, the Biden administration knew full well that Netanyahu was thwarting efforts to reach a ceasefire, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken came out with a statement blaming Hamas. And when Netanyahu breached a ceasefire in March 2025 and ordered the military to return to fighting, the Trump administration blamed Hamas.
Netanyahu, with his knowledge of U.S. politics, was well aware that Washington would be unlikely to publicly blame Israel. And he took full advantage of this fact to promote his spoiling of the ceasefire negotiations in broad daylight.
No choice but to sign
So what changed in October 2025 that allowed Trump to overcome Netanyahu’s actions as a spoiler and secure a ceasefire?
In short, Trump simply decided to play the same game. He publicly announced that the deal existed and left Netanyahu no choice but to sign it to preserve the perception that there is “no daylight” between Israel and the U.S. As a former Netanyahu aid suggested, “Trump is unpredictable and will not fall in line with the Israeli position.”
Trump’s announcement of the deal, before many of the details were agreed upon, enabled the ceasefire agreement, Israel’s partial withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas’ release of the Israeli hostages.
The road to an actual end of the war, not to mention Trump’s lofty declarations of a historic peace, is still in the far distance. But the ceasefire, if it holds, is a critical step, in my view, to end this terrible chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Boaz Atzili is related to two Israeli citizens who were held hostage by Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Avec l’aimable autorisation de l’auteur (pas de réutilisation). Photo: Kayla Kolff, Fourni par l’auteur
Les animaux réagissent de différentes manières lorsqu’ils sont blessés.
Mais jusqu’ici, on avait rarement la preuve qu’ils utilisaient des substances actives pour soigner leurs plaies. Une étude récente sur un orang-outan soignant une blessure à l’aide d’une plante médicinale offre une piste prometteuse.
On sait que les chimpanzés lèchent leurs blessures. Ils appliquent parfois des feuilles dessus. Mais ces comportements restent encore mal compris. On ignore à quelle fréquence ils le font, si c’est fait délibérément, ou jusqu’où va leur ingéniosité face à une blessure.
De récentes observations sur le terrain en Ouganda, en Afrique de l’Est, révèlent désormais des informations intrigantes sur la manière dont ces animaux font face à leurs blessures.
En tant que primatologue, les capacités cognitives et la vie sociale des chimpanzés me passionnent. Leur comportement face à la maladie peut nous renseigner sur les les origines évolutives des soins et de l’empathie chez les humains. Les chimpanzés sont parmi nos plus proches parents. En les comprenant, nous en apprenons beaucoup sur nous-mêmes.
Dans le cadre de nos recherches menées dans le parc national de Kibale, en Ouganda, nous avons observé, à cinq reprises, des chimpanzés appliquer des insectes sur leurs propres plaies ouvertes, et dans un cas sur celles d’un autre individu.
Des comportements tels que l’application d’insectes montrent que les chimpanzés ne sont pas passifs lorsqu’ils sont blessés. Ils expérimentent leur environnement, parfois seuls et parfois avec d’autres. Même s’il ne faut pas conclure trop rapidement qu’il s’agit de « médecine », cela montre qu’ils sont capables de réagir à leurs blessures de manière inventive et parfois de manière solidaire.
Chaque nouvelle découverte nous en apprend un peu plus sur les chimpanzés. Elle nous donne un aperçu des racines communes de nos propres réflexes face à la blessure et à l’envie de soigner.
Attrapez d’abord votre insecte
Nous avons observé l’application d’insectes par hasard alors que nous observions et enregistrions leur comportement dans la forêt, mais nous avons accordé une attention particulière aux chimpanzés présentant des plaies ouvertes.
Application d’insectes par Damien, un chimpanzé subadulte.
Dans tous les cas observés, leurs gestes semblaient délibérés. Le chimpanzé attrapait un insecte volant non identifié, l’immobilisait entre ses lèvres ou ses doigts, et le pressait directement sur une plaie ouverte. Le même insecte était parfois réappliqué plusieurs fois, parfois après avoir été brièvement tenu dans la bouche, avant d’être jeté. D’autres chimpanzés observaient parfois le processus de près, apparemment avec curiosité.
La plupart du temps, le chimpanzé soignait sa propre blessure. Mais dans un cas rare, une jeune femelle a appliqué un insecte sur la plaie de son frère. Une étude a déjà montré que dans cette même communauté, les chimpanzés tamponnent les plaies de membres non-apparentés avec des feuilles. On peut se demander s’ils feraient de même avec des insectes au-delà des membres de la famille.
Les actes de soins, qu’ils soient destinés à la famille ou à d’autres personnes, peuvent révéler les fondements précoces de l’empathie et de la solidarité.
Cette séquence d’actions ressemble beaucoup à ce qu’on observe chez les chimpanzés du Gabon, en Afrique centrale. Cette similitude suggère que l’application d’insectes pourrait représenter un comportement plus répandu chez les chimpanzés qu’on ne le pensait auparavant.
Les découvertes faites dans le parc national de Kibale élargissent notre vision de la façon dont les chimpanzés réagissent aux blessures. Plutôt que de laisser les blessures sans soins, ils agissent parfois de manière délibérée et ciblée.
Les chimpanzés pratiquent-ils les premiers secours ?
Les insectes, cependant, sont un cas à part. Il n’a pas encore été démontré que le fait d’appliquer des insectes sur des blessures accélère la guérison ou réduit les infections. De nombreux insectes produisent des substances antimicrobiennes ou anti-inflammatoires, ce qui rend cette possibilité envisageable, mais des tests scientifiques sont encore nécessaires.
Pour l’instant, nous pouvons affirmer que ce comportement semble ciblé, systématique et délibéré. Le cas unique d’un insecte appliqué sur un autre individu est particulièrement intrigant. Les chimpanzés sont des animaux très sociables, mais l’aide active est relativement rare. Outre les comportements bien connus tels que le toilettage, le partage de nourriture et l’aide apportée lors de combats, l’application d’un insecte sur la blessure d’un frère ou d’une sœur suggère une autre forme de soins, qui va au-delà du simple maintien des relations et pourrait améliorer l’état physique de l’autre.
De grandes questions
Ce comportement soulève d’importantes questions. Si l’application d’insectes s’avère avoir des vertus médicinales, cela pourrait expliquer pourquoi les chimpanzés le font. Ce qui soulève à son tour la question de l’origine de ce comportement : les chimpanzés l’ont-ils appris en observant les autres, ou l’ont-ils découvert de manière plus spontanée ? De là découle la question de la sélectivité : choisissent-ils des insectes volants particuliers ? Et si oui, les autres membres du groupe apprennent-ils à sélectionner les mêmes ?
Dans la médecine traditionnelle humaine (entomothérapie), les insectes volants tels que les abeilles mellifères et les mouches bleues sont appréciés pour leurs effets antimicrobiens ou anti-inflammatoires. Il reste à déterminer si les insectes appliqués par les chimpanzés offrent des bienfaits similaires.
Enfin, si les chimpanzés appliquent effectivement des insectes aux vertus curatives, et s’ils le font parfois sur les plaies d’autrui, cela pourrait être considéré comme une forme d’aide active, voire de comportement prosocial (ce terme est utilisé pour décrire les comportements qui profitent à d’autres plutôt qu’à l’individu qui les adopte).
Observer ces chimpanzés du parc national de Kibale attraper un insecte volant, l’immobiliser et le presser délicatement sur une blessure ouverte rappelle combien leurs capacités restent encore à explorer. Ce comportement s’ajoute à une série d’observations montrant que les origines des comportements de soins et de guérison remontent à une époque beaucoup plus lointaine dans l’évolution.
Si l’application d’insectes s’avère avoir des vertus médicinales, cela renforce l’importance de la protection des chimpanzés et de leurs habitats. À leur tour, ces habitats protègent les insectes qui peuvent contribuer au bien-être des chimpanzés.
Kayla Kolff a reçu un financement de la Fondation allemande pour la recherche (DFG), numéro de projet 274877981 (GRK-2185/1 : Groupe de formation à la recherche DFG Situated Cognition).
The US vice-president, J. D. Vance, has identified himself as being “of the post-liberal right”. Vance is generally thought of as more influential than many previous US vice-presidents and the odds are narrowing on him running for president in 2028. So it’s useful to know what this “post-liberal” section of the Republican party stands for.
In many ways, post-liberalism isn’t new. As I argue in my forthcoming book, post-liberals hold very traditional, conservative views on social issues that have been present in the Republican party going back decades.
But post-liberalism is different from past conservatism in three big ways.
Economic policy
Since the 1980s, conservatives across the west have mostly supported neo-liberal economics. That means things like free trade, privatisation, less government spending, globalisation and letting markets run with little interference. In short: the market decides, not the state.
Post-liberals strongly disagree. They argue that neo-liberalism has helped big corporations make unprecedented profits while hurting working people, destroying local communities, and damaging the environment. They say free trade hasn’t raised living standards for everyone – especially the working class.
Instead, they want governments to break up powerful monopolies, rebuild manufacturing bases, ensure that wages can support families, protect workers (including gig workers) and support unions and trades. This is closer to former president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, where an emboldened state counterbalances capital to protect communities and the working-classes, than it is Ronald Reagan’s free marketeering philosophy of the 1980s.
Freedom and the common good
Post-liberals also argue that neo-liberal economics isn’t truly conservative at all – it’s just another form of liberalism because it focuses on individual freedom and choice. Liberalism is about giving people as much freedom as possible. Post-liberals say this has gone too far. In their view, freedom is not the most important thing – it’s more important to be making the right choices.
They believe in something they call the “common good”: the idea that there is one true way to live a good life, and that politics should guide people towards it. Individuals, according to this view, can be wrong about what’s best for them. It’s the moral purpose of the state to step in and point them in the right direction.
The role of the state
Religion – especially Catholicism – plays a big role in this. Many post-liberal thinkers are Catholic (as is Vance). Some believe that the state should act under the authority of the Catholic church to pursue our spiritual ends – very likely restricting certain civil and political rights of unbelievers (or believers of the wrong religion) in doing so. Not all post-liberals agree with that extreme version. But all agree that religion needs to play a more central role in politics.
Traditional conservatives often tried to change culture first, hoping politics would follow. Post-liberals think this has failed. What is needed instead, they believe, is the opposite: political power needs to be seized and then used to make society more conservative.
Like populists, they argue that “the people” (especially the working classes) are being undermined by a liberal elite. But while populists want to hand politics to the people, post-liberals think elites are inevitable. The question is whether the right elites – those committed to the common good – wield power.
Strategies differ among post-liberals as to how this will be achieved. One model is democratic – take over a political party (as Trump did with the Republicans) and then reshape society along post-liberal lines. Another model is significantly less democratic: place loyal officials inside the administration to quietly change the system from within, even if voters do not support post-liberalism.
Which strategy post-liberals choose depends on how much they think ordinary people understand their best interests. If they believe “the people” still know what is good for them – that is, post-liberalism – then all that’s needed is a political party to run on a post-liberal platform and win support through elections.
But in reality, there isn’t much evidence that large numbers of people are already waiting to support post-liberal ideas.
That makes the second strategy – quietly reshaping government from the inside – seem more likely. In this view, if people don’t know what’s truly good for them, democracy can’t be trusted. Instead, leaders must guide – or even compel – citizens towards the “right” beliefs and choices, teaching them what their real interests are.
Where conservatives have distrusted large governments, championed markets, and celebrated individualism, post-liberals embrace “big-state conservatism”. They treat a strong and activist government as essential to counter vested economic interests. Further it’s the government’s moral purpose to guide the people towards living what they believe to be the universal view of what represents a good life.
Post-liberals want to use government power to reshape society. They want to guide people towards one view of the good life, heavily influenced by religion. But many people do not
Girls in France are much less inclined than boys to pursue scientific fields of study, and this is partly due to persistent gender stereotypes. But other factors also come into play. These explanations are based on a survey by the Chair for Women’s Employment and Entrepreneurship at Sciences Po.
How can we attract more women in France to higher education in science and technology? For several years, public authorities have been supporting initiatives aimed at promoting gender diversity in these fields of study, the most recent being the “Girls and Maths” action plan, launched by the ministry of national education, higher education, and research in May 2025.
There are two main reasons behind these initiatives. On the one hand, the aim is to reduce gender inequalities in the labour market, particularly the pay gap. On the other hand, the objective is to support economic growth in promising fields by training more people who can contribute to innovation in strategic sectors of activity.
Different choices
The differences in orientation between women and men remain very marked at the start of higher education. This is evident from the choices made by high school seniors on Parcoursup, the French platform for accessing post-baccalaureate programmes, as can be seen in the following graph based on data made available on Datagouv. It represents the number of applications for the most popular courses of study (more than 4,000 applications).
Source: Parcoursup 2024 – applications to continue studies and change direction in higher education, and responses from institutions. The x-axis shows female candidates, and the y-axis shows male candidates. The symbols at right, from top to bottom, represent science and technology; STAPS; health; human and social sciences, literature, languages, arts; economics, management, commerce. Fourni par l’auteur
The points above the diagonal represent programmes with a predominance of male applicants, while those below represent programmes with a predominance of female applicants. Men account for approximately 70% of applicants to science and technology programmes, including STAPS (science and technology of physical education and sports).
The main exceptions concern courses in life and earth sciences, for which there are more female applicants. Programmes in economics, management, and business (in blue) tend to be more mixed. Finally, programmes in health, humanities, social sciences, literature, languages, and arts (in purple) are mainly favored by women, who account for around 75% of applicants.
In order to better understand the current reasons for the differences between women and men in higher education choices, the Chair for Women’s Employment and Entrepreneurship at Sciences Po conducted a survey in partnership with Ipsos in February 2025 among a representative sample of the student population in France, with a total of 1,500 responses. The results of this survey were published by the Observatory of Well-Being of the Centre for Economic Research and its Applications (Cepremap).
One of the striking findings of the survey concerns the differences between women and men in the importance they attach to passion as a determining factor in their higher education choices.
Significantly more female students choose courses related to their passions, and they seem to do so fully aware that these choices may penalise them later on in the job market. In fact, 67% of women (compared to 58% of men) say they “prefer to study a subject they are passionate about, even if it does not guarantee a well-paid job”, while 33% of women (compared to 42% of men) say they “prefer to get a well-paid job, even if it doesn’t guarantee that they will study a subject they are passionate about”.
Women who prioritise passion are more likely to enrol in arts and humanities programmes, while those who prefer a well-paid job are more likely to enrol in economics, business, and commerce programmes, or in science and technology programmes.
The role of parents
Furthermore, the survey results highlight the fact that parents are more influential in determining their sons’ educational choices than their daughters’. In fact, female students receive more support from their parents, regardless of their chosen field of study, while male students are less likely to receive their parents’ approval, particularly for fields of study that lead to less lucrative careers in the job market (eg humanities, social sciences or arts) or that have become feminised (eg law or health).
Paradoxically, the lack of parental influence on girls’ choices may explain why they are more likely to follow their passion, finding themselves more constrained in the job market later on.
The results also show that preferences developed for different subjects in secondary school account for more than half of the differences between women and men in their higher education choices.
Women appear to have more diverse tastes, with a preference for mathematics accounting for only a small part (around 10%) of the difference in study choices. This partly explains why women tend to shy away from science and technology courses of study, which may be perceived as requiring them to give up other subjects they enjoy. More men than women enjoyed only science subjects in secondary school (29% of male students compared to 14% of female students).
Multidisciplinary programmes and role models
If the French economy needs more women with degrees in science and technology, how can we attract them to these fields? The main challenge lies in conveying a passion for science and technology to women.
This can be achieved through role models, such as high-achieving people who share their enthusiasm for their discipline before students make crucial choices. This can also involve the development of multidisciplinary courses that combine science, social sciences, and humanities, so as to offer young women (and young men) with varied interests the opportunity to pursue scientific studies without giving up other fields.
Finally, science programmes can adapt their educational offerings to make teaching more attractive to female students. By highlighting how science and technology can contribute to the common good and address the challenges of contemporary societies, a reformulation of course titles can, for example, highlight issues that are important to them.
Created in 2007 to help accelerate and share scientific knowledge on key societal issues, the Axa Research Fund – now part of the Axa Foundation for Human Progress – has supported over 750 projects around the world on key environment, health & socioeconomic risks. To learn more, visit the website of the AXA Research Fund or follow @ AXAResearchFund on LinkedIn.
The collection of data was funded by the Chair for Women’s Employment and Entrepreneurship (Sciences Po, Paris).
Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ivis García, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University
Hurricane Melissa’s 185 mph winds and storm surge tore apart buildings and left streets strewn with debris in Black River, Jamaica, on Oct. 28, 2025.Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images
Across Jamaica, streets are littered with torn-off roofs, splintered wood and other debris left in the wake of Hurricane Melissa. Downed power lines have left communities in the dark, and many flooded and wind-damaged homes are unlivable.
Recovering from the devastation of one of the Atlantic’s most powerful storms, which struck on Oct. 28, 2025, will take months and likely years in some areas. That work is made much harder by the isolation of being an island.
As a researcher who has extensively studied disaster recovery in Puerto Rico after Hurricane María in 2017, I know that the decisions Jamaica makes in the days and weeks following the disaster will shape its recovery for years to come. Puerto Rico’s mistakes following Maria hold some important lessons.
An aerial view shows some of the widespread damage caused by Hurricane Melissa’s storm surge and powerful winds in Black River, Jamaica. Ivan Shaw/AFP via Getty Images
Why island recovery is different
Islands face obstacles that most mainland communities don’t experience. Geographic isolation compounds every problem in ways that make both the emergency response and the long-term recovery fundamentally harder.
Communities can easily be cut off by damaged roads, particularly in rugged areas like Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. Every damaged port facility, every closed airport, every blocked road multiplies isolation in both the short and long term.
Power was out in communities across Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa, and several coastal communities were caked with mud. On the U.S. mainland, surrounding states will send fleets of repair trucks and linemen to rebuild power infrastructure quickly, but on an island, that kind of fleet isn’t available, and the damage is often widespread. Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images
As Puerto Rico saw after Hurricane Maria, in the early days after a disaster, basic emergency supplies like tarps, batteries, fresh food and water and generators can become scarce.
Weeks and months later, reconstruction materials can still take a long time to arrive, extending the recovery time far beyond what most mainland communities would experience. This isn’t just a price-gouging ploy; it’s the reality of island supply chains and shipping infrastructure under stress. Isolation, limited port capacity and dependence on imports create unique vulnerabilities that slow disaster recovery, as research on Hurricane Maria’s impact on Puerto Rico has shown.
Local organizations: From response to recovery
One of the most important lessons I saw in Puerto Rico is that local nonprofits and community organizations are essential first responders in the emergency phase and then transition into recovery leaders.
These organizations know their communities intimately: who is elderly and homebound, which neighborhoods will have the greatest need, and how to navigate local conditions.
People use sheet metal to cover a home after Hurricane Melissa tore the roof off. Getting supplies for many repairs will take time on an island with so much damage. Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images
Right now, Jamaican churches, community groups and local organizations are in emergency response mode — checking on residents, distributing water and providing shelter. For example, the Jamaica Council of Churches, which has extensive disaster response experience, has started to coordinate relief efforts though its community networks.
Over the long term, my research shows that local organizations are crucial for helping families recover. They help to navigate insurance claims, organize rebuilding efforts, provide mental health support, and advocate for community needs in recovery planning, among many roles.
However, many disaster recovery funding sources favor larger, international nonprofits over local groups, even for distribution once supplies have arrived. In Puerto Rico after Hurricane María, only 10% of the nearly US$5 billion in federal contracts went to Puerto Rico-based groups, while 90% flowed to mainland contractors.
In Puerto Rico, blue tarps covered homes with damaged roofs for months after Hurricane Maria, as owners waited for the supplies and repair help. Even the tarps were hard to come by at times. AP Photo/Carlos Giusti
Jamaica will face similar dynamics as international funding arrives from sources such as the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank. Ensuring the recovery funding goes through established Jamaican organizations can help the recovery.
The diaspora: Urgent help, long-term support
When institutional systems such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the government of Puerto Rico could not offer aid fast enough after Hurricane Maria, diaspora communities became crucial lifelines. Puerto Ricans in Chicago, New York and Florida organized relief efforts, raised funds and shipped supplies within days.
Months later, Puerto Ricans living on the U.S. mainland continued providing financial support. They hosted displaced family members and advocated for federal aid. As my co-author Maura I. Toro-Morn and I document in our book “Puerto Ricans in Illinois,” diaspora communities that mobilized statewide in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria demonstrated how Puerto Ricans supported the island during crisis.
The Jamaican diaspora in London, Toronto, New York and Miami represents a massive potential resource for both immediate relief and long-term recovery.
Jamaica’s government has multiple diaspora engagement platforms, such as JA Diaspora Engage, the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council and JAMPRO. But these primarily focus on economic development and investment rather than disaster response coordination. In contrast, Haiti established the Haitian Diaspora Emergency Response Unit in 2010 specifically for disaster coordination. After the 2021 earthquake, it coordinated relief efforts across more than 200 organizations, raising $1.5 million within weeks.
Volunteers assemble relief packages to help Jamaica in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa at the Global Empowerment Mission headquarters in Miami. Foreign-based organizations can coordinate large quantities of supplies, but distribution on the ground can be more efficient when run by local organizations that know where people are in need. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Image
Jamaica could adapt its existing diaspora infrastructure to include an emergency response component. It could provide regular updates on community needs during disasters, verify trusted local partners for aid distribution, and facilitate logistics for shipping supplies over the years of recovery.
The out-migration risk: When emergencies becomes permanent
Perhaps the most devastating long-term impact of Hurricane María was massive population loss — a recovery failure that began with emergency response decisions.
Of Puerto Ricans who applied for federal assistance, approximately 50% had new addresses on the U.S. mainland. Their displacement that began as a temporary evacuation became permanent when Puerto Rico couldn’t restore viable living conditions quickly enough.
Without housing, employment or basic services for months, families had little choice but to leave. About a quarter of Puerto Rico’s schools were closed by the storm damage. I saw similar patterns in Maui, Hawaii, as it recovered from devastating wildfires in 2023. Limited lodging and high costs made it impossible for many displaced residents to stay.
Researchers estimated that of the nearly 400,000 people who left Puerto Rico in 2017 and 2018 after María, maybe 50,000 had returned by 2019.
Jamaica faces similar risks. The out-migration crisis doesn’t happen all at once – it’s a slow bleed that accelerates as emergency response transitions into prolonged recovery.
The time to prevent that pressure to leave is now. The government can help by communicating realistic timelines for service restoration and prioritizing school reopening. Every week increases the risk that temporary displacement becomes permanent emigration.
Building back better: Recovery, not just response
Disasters create opportunities to build back better, but that requires thinking about the future rather than simply recreating what existed before.
Jamaica can prioritize speed in emergency response by rebuilding the old system, or it can invest in a recovery that also builds resilience for the future. Climate change is fueling more intense and destructive hurricanes, leaving Caribbean islands at growing risk of damage.
Hurricane Maria revealed serious infrastructure vulnerabilities as the aging power grid collapsed under Category 4 winds. Puerto Rico could have rebuilt with more modern, resilient infrastructure. However, RAND Corporation research found that reconstruction largely restored the old, vulnerable centralized power system, rather than transforming it with distributed renewable energy, hardened transmission lines and microgrids that could withstand future storms.
Many businesses and homeowners in Puerto Rico added solar panels after Hurricane Maria to help manage frequent power grid outages. Rebuilding the U.S. territory’s grid and power system was slow, and it continued to rely on fossil fuels. Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images
Water systems, roads, schools and hospitals could also be rebuilt to better withstand storms and with redundancy – such as backup power sources and distributed water systems – to help the island recover faster in future hurricanes.
These improvements are expensive, and Jamaica will need international donors to help fund the recovery, not just the immediate emergency response.
The decisions made today will echo for years. Jamaica’s recovery doesn’t have to repeat Puerto Rico’s mistakes.
Ivis García receives funding from National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ford Foundation, National Academy of Sciences, Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico, UNIDOS, Texas Appleseed, Natural Hazard Center, Chicago Community Trust, American Planning Association, and Salt Lake City Corporation.
Les gens rient lorsque les règles sont transgressées sans heurter les sensibilités. Un art d’équilibriste.Milan Markovic/E+ via Getty Images
Plutôt que de chercher à faire rire à tout prix, mieux vaut adopter la façon de penser des humoristes pour stimuler la créativité, renforcer l’esprit d’équipe et se démarquer sans déraper.
Comment progresser dans sa carrière sans trop s’ennuyer ? Une solution souvent évoquée dans les livres de management, sur LinkedIn
ou dans les manuels de team building, consiste à manier l’humour. Partager des blagues, des remarques sarcastiques, des mèmes ironiques ou des anecdotes spirituelles, dit-on, vous rendra plus sympathique, réduira le stress, renforcera les équipes, stimulera la créativité et pourra même révéler votre potentiel de leader.
Nous sommesprofesseurs de marketing et de management spécialisés dans l’étude de l’humour et des dynamiques de travail. Nos propres recherches – ainsi qu’un nombre croissant de travaux menés par d’autres chercheurs – montrent qu’il est plus difficile d’être drôle qu’on ne le croit. Les conséquences d’une mauvaise blague sont souvent plus lourdes que les bénéfices d’une bonne. Heureusement, il n’est pas nécessaire de faire hurler de rire son entourage pour que l’humour vous soit utile. Il suffit d’apprendre à penser comme un humoriste.
L’humour, un exercice risqué
La comédie repose sur le fait de tordre et de transgresser les normes – et lorsque ces règles ne sont pas brisées de la bonne manière, cela nuit plus souvent à votre réputation que cela n’aide votre équipe. Nous avons développé la « théorie de la violation bénigne »
pour expliquer ce qui rend une situation drôle – et pourquoi tant de tentatives d’humour tournent mal, notamment au travail. En résumé, le rire naît lorsque quelque chose est à la fois « mal » et « acceptable ».
Les gens rient lorsque les règles sont transgressées sans danger. Si l’un des deux éléments manque, la blague tombe à plat. Quand tout est bénin et qu’il n’y a aucune transgression, on s’ennuie. Quand il n’y a que transgression sans bénignité, on provoque l’indignation.
Il est déjà difficile de faire rire dans la pénombre d’un comedy club. Sous les néons d’un bureau, la ligne devient encore plus mince. Ce qui paraît « mal mais acceptable » à un collègue peut sembler simplement inacceptable à un autre, selon la hiérarchie, la culture, le genre ou même l’humeur du moment.
La série « The Office » excelle dans l’art d’exposer les conséquences d’une transgression ratée.
Une étude publicitaire
Dans nos expériences, lorsque des personnes ordinaires sont invitées à « être drôles », la plupart de leurs tentatives tombent à plat ou franchissent des limites. Lors d’un concours de légendes humoristiques avec des étudiants en école de commerce – décrit dans le livre de Peter McGraw sur l’humour à travers le monde, The Humor Code, les propositions n’étaient pas particulièrement drôles au départ. Pourtant, celles jugées les plus amusantes étaient aussi considérées comme les plus déplacées.
Être drôle sans être offensant est donc essentiel. C’est particulièrement vrai pour les femmes : de nombreuses études montrent qu’elles subissent des réactions plus négatives que les hommes lorsqu’elles adoptent des comportements perçus comme offensants ou transgressifs, tels que l’expression de la colère, l’affirmation de dominance ou même les demandes de négociation.
Risquer de perdre tout respect
Les recherches menées par d’autres spécialistes du comportement des leaders et managers racontent la même histoire. Dans une étude, les managers qui utilisaient l’humour efficacement étaient perçus comme plus compétents et plus sûrs d’eux, ce qui renforçait leur statut. Mais lorsque leurs tentatives échouaient, ils perdaient aussitôt crédibilité et autorité. D’autres chercheurs ont montré qu’un humour raté ne nuisait pas seulement au statut d’un manager, mais réduisait aussi le respect, la confiance et la volonté des employés de solliciter ses conseils.
Même lorsqu’une blague fait mouche, l’humour peut se retourner contre son auteur. Dans une étude, des étudiants en marketing chargés d’écrire des publicités « drôles » ont produit des annonces plus amusantes, mais moins efficaces, que ceux invités à rédiger des textes « créatifs » ou « persuasifs ».
Une autre étude a révélé que les patrons qui plaisantent trop souvent poussent leurs employés à feindre l’amusement, ce qui épuise leur énergie, réduit leur satisfaction et augmente le risque d’épuisement professionnel. Et les risques sont encore plus élevés pour les femmes en raison d’un double standard : lorsqu’elles utilisent l’humour dans une présentation, elles sont souvent jugées moins compétentes et de plus faible statut que les hommes.
En résumé, une bonne blague ne vous vaudra presque jamais une promotion. Mais une mauvaise peut mettre votre poste en danger – même si vous n’êtes pas un animateur de talk-show payé pour faire rire.
Inverser la perspective
Plutôt que d’essayer d’être drôle au travail, nous recommandons de vous concentrer sur ce que nous appelons « penser drôle » – comme le décrit un autre livre de McGraw, “Shtick to Business.
« Les meilleures idées naissent comme des blagues », disait le légendaire publicitaire David Ogilvy. « Essayez de rendre votre manière de penser aussi drôle que possible. » Mais Ogilvy ne conseillait pas aux dirigeants de lancer des blagues en réunion. Il les encourageait à penser comme des humoristes : renverser les attentes, s’appuyer sur leurs réseaux et trouver leur propre registre.
Les humoristes ont souvent pour habitude de vous emmener dans une direction avant de renverser la situation. Le comédien Henny Youngman, maître des répliques percutantes, a ainsi lancé cette célèbre boutade : « Quand j’ai lu les dangers de l’alcool, j’ai arrêté… de lire. »
La version professionnelle de cette approche consiste à remettre en cause une évidence.
Par exemple, la campagne « Don’t Buy This Jacket » de Patagonia, publiée en pleine journée du Black Friday 2011 sous forme de page entière dans le New York Times, a paradoxalement fait grimper les ventes en dénonçant la surconsommation.
Pour appliquer cette méthode, identifiez une idée reçue au sein de votre équipe – par exemple, que l’ajout de nouvelles fonctionnalités améliore toujours un produit, ou que multiplier les réunions favorise une meilleure coordination – et demandez-vous : « Et si c’était l’inverse ? » Vous découvrirez alors des pistes que les séances de brainstorming classiques laissent souvent passer.
Créer un fossé
Quand l’humoriste Bill Burr fait hurler de rire son public, il sait que certaines personnes ne trouveront pas ses blagues drôles – et il ne cherche pas à les convaincre. Nous avons observé que beaucoup des meilleurs comiques ne cherchent pas à plaire à tout le monde. Leur succès repose justement sur le fait de restreindre délibérément leur audience. Et nous constatons que les entreprises qui adoptent la même stratégie bâtissent souvent des marques plus fortes.
Par exemple, lorsque l’office du tourisme du Nebraska a choisi le slogan « Honnêtement, ce n’est pas pour tout le monde » dans une campagne de 2019 visant les visiteurs hors de l’État, le trafic du site web a bondi de 43 %. Certaines personnes aiment le thé chaud, d’autres le thé glacé. Servir du thé tiède ne satisfait personne. De la même manière, on peut réussir en affaires en décidant à qui une idée s’adresse – et à qui elle ne s’adresse pas – puis en adaptant son produit, sa politique ou sa présentation en conséquence.
Coopérer pour innover
Le stand-up peut sembler un exercice solitaire. Pourtant, les humoristes dépendent du retour des autres – les suggestions de leurs pairs et les réactions du public – et peaufinent leurs blagues comme une start-up agile améliore un produit.
Construire des équipes performantes au travail suppose d’écouter avant de parler, de valoriser ses partenaires et de trouver le bon équilibre entre les rôles. Le professeur d’improvisation Billy Merritt décrit trois types d’improvisateurs : les pirates, qui prennent des risques ; les robots, qui bâtissent des structures ; et les ninjas, capables de faire les deux à la fois – oser et organiser.
Une équipe qui conçoit une nouvelle application, par exemple, a besoin des trois : des pirates pour proposer des fonctionnalités audacieuses, des robots pour simplifier l’interface, et des ninjas pour relier le tout. Donner à chacun la possibilité de jouer pleinement son rôle permet de générer des idées plus courageuses, avec moins d’angles morts.
Les dons ne sont pas universels
Dire à quelqu’un « sois drôle » revient à lui dire « sois musical ». Beaucoup d’entre nous savent garder le rythme, mais peu ont le talent nécessaire pour devenir des rock stars.C’est pourquoi nous pensons qu’il est plus judicieux de penser comme un humoriste que d’essayer d’en imiter un.
En renversant les évidences, en coopérant pour innover et en assumant des choix clivants, les professionnels peuvent trouver des solutions originales et se démarquer — sans devenir la risée du bureau.
Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.
Les _stablecoins_ apparaissent comme un instrument de dollarisation et une menace pour la souveraineté monétaire des États, notamment ceux de la zone euro.Funtap/Shutterstock
Présentés comme des ponts entre la finance traditionnelle et l’univers des cryptoactifs, les « stablecoins » (jetons indexés) prétendent révolutionner la monnaie et la finance. Pourtant, ils portent en germe une double menace : la fragilisation de l’ordre monétaire, fondé sur la confiance, et de l’ordre financier, en créant de nouveaux canaux de risque.
Les « stablecoins » sont des « jetons qui ont pour objectif de pallier la forte volatilité des cryptoactifs traditionnels grâce à l’indexation de leur valeur sur celle d’une devise ou d’un panier de devises (dollar, euro, yen) dans un rapport de 1 : 1, ou encore sur une matière première (or, pétrole) » ainsi que nous l’expliquons dans notre ouvrage avec Nadia Antonin. Pour chaque unité de stablecoin émise, la société émettrice conserve en réserve une valeur équivalente, sous forme de monnaie fiduciaire ou d’actifs tangibles servant de garantie.
On peut distinguer trois types de stablecoins en fonction du type d’ancrage :
Les stablecoins centralisés, où l’ancrage est assuré par un fonds de réserve stocké en dehors de la chaîne de blocs (off chain).
Les stablecoins décentralisés garantis par d’autres cryptoactifs, où le collatéral est stocké sur la chaîne de blocs (on chain).
Les stablecoins décentralisés algorithmiques.
Fin octobre 2025, la capitalisation de marché des stablecoins atteint 312 milliards de dollars (plus de 269 milliards d’euros), dont 95 % pour les stablecoins centralisés. Nous nous concentrons sur ces derniers.
Genius Act vs MiCA
Concernant la composition des réserves, les réglementations diffèrent selon les pays. La loi Genius, adoptée par le Congrès des États-Unis en juillet 2025, dispose que chaque stablecoins de paiement doit être garanti à 100 % par des actifs liquides, principalement des dollars américains, des bons du Trésor ou des dépôts bancaires. Il prévoit également des rapports mensuels détaillés et un audit annuel obligatoire pour les grands émetteurs.
Dans l’Union européenne (UE), le règlement MiCA impose des conditions beaucoup plus strictes. Il exige que les actifs soient entièrement garantis par des réserves conservées dans des banques européennes et soumis à des audits indépendants au moins deux fois par an.
Stabilité du système monétaire fragilisée
Crypto-actifs. Une menace pour l’ordre monétaire et financier, par Céline et Nadia Antonin. Economica, Fourni par l’auteur
Bien que plus « stables » en apparence que d’autres cryptoactifs, les stablecoins échouent à satisfaire les trois principes qui, selon la littérature monétaire institutionnelle, définissent la stabilité d’un système monétaire : l’unicité, l’élasticité et l’intégrité.
Historiquement, le principe d’unicité garantit que toutes les formes de monnaie – billets, dépôts, réserves… – sont convertibles à parité, assurant ainsi une unité de compte stable. Les stablecoins, émis par des acteurs privés et non adossés à la monnaie centrale, mettent fin à cette parité : leur valeur peut s’écarter de celle de la monnaie légale, introduisant un risque de fragmentation de l’unité monétaire.
Le principe d’élasticité renvoie à la capacité du système monétaire à ajuster l’offre de liquidités aux besoins de l’économie réelle. Contrairement aux banques commerciales, qui créent de la monnaie par le crédit sous la supervision de la banque centrale, les émetteurs de stablecoins ne font que transformer des dépôts collatéralisés : ils ne peuvent ajuster la liquidité aux besoins de l’économie.
Le principe d’intégrité suppose un cadre institutionnel garantissant la sécurité, la transparence et la légalité des opérations monétaires. Les stablecoins échappent à la supervision prudentielle, exposant le système à des risques de blanchiment, de fraude et de perte de confiance.
La question des réserves
L’existence et la qualité des réserves sont fragiles. Il faut garder à l’esprit que les actifs mis en réserve ne sont pas équivalents à la monnaie banque centrale : ils sont exposés aux risques de marché, de liquidité et de contrepartie.
Aux États-Unis, les émetteurs (comme Tether ou Circle) publient des attestations périodiques, mais ne produisent pas d’audit en temps réel. Rappelons qu’en 2021, Tether s’était vu infliger une amende de 41 millions de dollars (plus de 35 millions d’euros) par la Commodity Futures Trading Commission des États-Unis, pour avoir fait de fausses déclarations sur la composition de ses réserves. Les réserves sont souvent fragmentées entre plusieurs juridictions et déposées dans des institutions non réglementées.
Le modèle économique des émetteurs de stablecoins repose sur la rémunération de leurs réserves. Il va de soi qu’ils n’ont aucun intérêt à détenir des actifs sûrs et à faible rendement. Imaginons que survienne une annonce qui sèmerait le doute sur la qualité des réserves. En l’absence d’accès aux facilités de la banque centrale ou à une assurance-dépôts, une perte de confiance se traduirait mécaniquement par une panique et un risque de perte d’ancrage.
Cette fragilité mine l’une des fonctions essentielles de la monnaie : la réserve de valeur.
Instrument de dollarisation et de colonisation monétaire
Les stablecoins apparaissent comme un instrument de dollarisation et une menace pour la souveraineté monétaire des États. En 2025, 99,0 % des stablecoins sont adossés au dollar en termes de capitalisation de marché. En diffusant des stablecoins adossés au dollar dans les économies émergentes ou faiblement bancarisées, les stablecoins favorisent une dollarisation numérique qui érode la souveraineté monétaire des banques centrales.
Pour l’UE, le risque est celui d’une colonisation monétaire numérique : des systèmes de paiement, d’épargne et de règlement opérés par des acteurs privés extra-européens. Les stablecoins conduisent également à une privatisation du seigneuriage – la perception de revenus liés à l’émission de monnaie, normalement perçus par la Banque centrale européenne (BCE). Les émetteurs de stablecoins captent la rémunération des actifs de réserve sans redistribuer ce rendement aux porteurs. Ce modèle détourne la fonction monétaire : la liquidité publique devient une source de profit privé, sans contribution à la création de crédit ou à l’investissement productif.
Risque de crise financière systémique
L’interconnexion entre stablecoins et finance traditionnelle accroît le risque systémique. En cas de perte de confiance, un mouvement de panique pourrait pousser de nombreux détenteurs à échanger leurs stablecoins, mettant en péril la capacité des émetteurs à rembourser. Or, les détenteurs ne sont pas protégés en cas de faillite, ce qui renforce le risque de crise systémique.
Le marché des stablecoins est très lié au marché de la dette souveraine états-unienne. La demande supplémentaire de stablecoins a directement contribué à l’augmentation des émissions de bons du Trésor à court terme (T-bills) aux États-Unis et à la baisse de leur rendement. La liquidation forcée de dizaines de milliards de T-bills perturberait le marché états-unien de la dette à court terme.
Risque de crédit et de fraude
Les stablecoins accroissent le risque de crédit, car comme les autres cryptoactifs, ils offrent un accès facilité à la finance décentralisée. Or, les possibilités d’effets de levier – autrement dit d’amplification des gains et des pertes – sont plus forts dans la finance décentralisée que dans la finance traditionnelle.
Mentionnons le risque de fraude : selon le Groupe d’action financière (Gafi), les stablecoins représentent désormais la majeure partie des activités illicites sur la chaîne de blocs, soit environ 51 milliards de dollars (44 milliards d’euros) en 2024.
Les stablecoins fragilisent la souveraineté des États, introduisent une fragmentation monétaire et ouvrent la voie à de nouvelles vulnérabilités financières. Pour l’Europe, l’alternative réside dans le développement d’une monnaie numérique de banque centrale, où l’innovation se conjugue avec la souveraineté. La vraie innovation ne réside pas dans la privatisation de la monnaie, mais dans l’appropriation par les autorités monétaires des outils numériques.
Cette contribution est publiée en partenariat avec les Journées de l’économie, cycle de conférences-débats qui se tiendront du 4 au 6 novembre 2025, au Lyon (Rhône). Retrouvez ici le programme complet de l’édition 2025, « Vieux démons et nouveaux mondes ».
Céline Antonin ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Content warning: this article includes graphic details about sexual assault some readers may find distressing.
Prince Andrew will be stripped of his royal titles, including prince, and will move out of his home, Royal Lodge, to a private residence. Buckingham Palace issued a statement today that King Charles has initiated a formal process to remove the “style, titles and honours of Prince Andrew”, who “will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor”.
The decision comes in the wake of Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl, published this fortnight. The memoir includes an inside account of the two years Giuffre spent as a “sex slave” working for Jeffrey Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre died by suicide in April this year, aged 41, on her farm in Western Australia.
Three weeks before she died, she emailed her co-author, journalist Amy Wallace, and longtime publicist Dini von Mueffling: “In the event of my passing, I would like to ensure that Nobody’s Girl is still released.”
“Today,” Giuffre’s family said, “she declares a victory. She has brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage”.
British historian and author Andrew Lownie (author of a book about Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, called Entitled), told Sky News earlier this month, “the only way the story will go away is if [Andrew] leaves Royal Lodge, goes into exile abroad with his ex-wife, and is basically stripped of all his honours, including Prince Andrew”. Sarah Ferguson will also move out of Royal Lodge.
As a trauma memoir, Nobody’s Girl forces us to bear witness to an uncomfortable truth: Giuffre’s abuse was hidden in plain sight.
“Don’t be fooled by those in Epstein’s circle who say they didn’t know what Epstein was doing,” she writes. “Anyone who spent any significant amount of time with Epstein saw him touching girls.” She continues: “They can say they didn’t know he was raping children. But they were not blind.”
Review: Nobody’s Girl: A memoir of surviving abuse and fighting for justice – Virginia Roberts Giuffre (Doubleday)
Four days before the memoir was published, Prince Andrew announced he would no longer use the titles conferred upon him, including Duke of York. Three days later, leaked emails from 2011 suggested he gave Giuffre’s date of birth and social security number to one of his protection officers, hours before the infamous photograph of him with her was published.
Maxwell’s brother, Ian Maxwell, published an article in the Spectator today, headlined “Don’t take Virginia Giuffre’s memoir at face value”. The memoir keeps his sister, who was convicted of charges including sex trafficking of a minor, in world headlines – at a time Donald Trump has said he will “take a look” at pardoning her. Earlier this year, Maxwell was moved to a lower security prison to continue her 20-year sentence.
Allegations of parental abuse
Giuffre writes that her father began molesting her at the age of seven. He “strenuously” denies this. While the memoir makes this public for the first time, Giuffre’s older brother Danny Wilson told ABC’s 7.30 he first heard the allegations years before the memoir was published – and confronted his father about it.
Giuffre regularly wet her pants at school – earning her the cruel nickname “Pee Girl”. She recalls: “I began to get painful urinary tract infections. My infections were so severe, I couldn’t hold my urine.”
After one (of several) medical examinations, a doctor told her mother her primary school aged daughter’s hymen was broken. Giuffre writes of this moment:
My mother didn’t hesitate. ‘Oh, she rides horses bareback,’ she explained. That was the end of that. I didn’t even know what a hymen was.
Later, she recalls her mother raising suspicions about her involvement with Epstein and “apex predator” Maxwell, questioning “what this older couple wanted with a teenage girl who had no credentials”.
Giuffre writes: “I guess I was glad she cared enough to have suspicions, but at the same time, wasn’t it a little late for that? I knew she couldn’t save me; she’d never saved me before.”
Around the time of her doctor’s visit, the memoir alleges, Giuffre’s father began “trading” his daughter to a friend – a tall, muscular man with “a military bearing” who was also abusing his own stepdaughter. In 2000, the man was convicted of molesting another girl in North Carolina. He spent 14 months in prison and a decade as a registered sex offender.
Giuffre writes that she was abused by these men for five years, from ages seven to eleven; it only stopped when she began menstruating.
Heartbreakingly, Giuffre discloses that at one point she imagined Maxwell (or “G-Max” as she wanted to be known) as her mother: “While I was hardly equipped to judge, it often seemed to me that Epstein and Maxwell behaved like actual parents.” Among other things, the pair gave Giuffre her first cell phone, whitened her teeth, and taught her how to hold a knife and fork “just so”.
‘The younger, the better’
Giuffre’s memoir is a courageous and clear-eyed account of what trauma takes – and what recovery demands.
Told in four chronological parts – “Daughter”, “Prisoner”, “Survivor” and “Warrior” – the memoir meticulously records the “sexual assaulting, battering, exploiting, and abusing” Giuffre endured throughout her life, most notably at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell.
The result is a devastating exposé of the fetishisation and abuse of girls – “the younger, the better”, Epstein said – and society’s failure to protect the most vulnerable.
Giuffre was 16 and working as a locker-room attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort when Ghislaine Maxwell recruited her to “service Epstein”, under the pretence of training as a masseuse. (In October 2007, Trump – who is portrayed favourably in the memoir – reportedly banned Epstein from his resort after Epstein hit on the teenage daughter of another member.)
Over the next two years, and roughly 350 pages, Giuffre tells how she was trafficked to “a multitude of powerful men”, including Prince Andrew, French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a prominent psychology professor and a respected United States senator.
Giuffre’s original memoir manuscript was titled “The Billionaire’s Playboy Club”.
In one of the most distressing scenes, Giuffre describes how she was trafficked to “a former minister”, who raped her so “savagely” she was left “bleeding from [her] mouth, vagina, and anus”. When Virginia told Epstein about the brutal attack, which made it hurt to breathe and swallow, he said, “You’ll get that sometimes.”
Eight weeks later, he returned Giuffre to the politician, who this time abused her on one of Epstein’s private jets. In the US version of the memoir, the politician is described not as a “former minister”, but as “a former Prime Minister”.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” Giuffre writes. “The violence. The neglect. The bad decisions. The self-harm. But please don’t stop reading.”
One of the most devastating revelations comes toward the end of the memoir. Giuffre – now in her forties – receives a phone call from a confidant claiming to have evidence that Epstein paid off her father when she was a girl. In 2000, when Epstein and Maxwell started abusing the teenager at El Brillo Way, it is alleged that her father accepted “a sum of money” from the paedophile.
According to Giuffre, when she confronted her father, there was “a brief silence” before “he started yelling at [her] for being an ungrateful daughter”.
Of all the betrayals she endured, this one stands alone: “I will never get over it”.
Girls no one cared about
“When a molester shows his face,” Giuffre writes, “many people tend to look the other way.”
In chapter 11, Giuffre describes how Epstein’s personal chef, the celebrity cook Adam Perry Lang, made her her favourite food – pizza. This, apparently, became something of a tradition – Lang feeding Giuffre, but never “ogl[ing]”, “even if I was standing naked in front of him, which was not unusual”. She wrote: “When I’d finished attending to Epstein or one of the other guests, Lang would have a cheesy hot pie waiting.”
In 2019, Lang issued a statement about working for Epstein: “My role was limited to meal preparation. I was unaware of the depraved behavior and have great sympathy and admiration for the brave women who have come forward.”
In another scene, Giuffre reveals that Epstein “never wore a condom”. After falling pregnant at the age of 17, she suffered an ectopic pregnancy.
On this day, Giuffre recalls how Epstein and Maxwell (“two halves of a wicked whole”) – with the help of Epstein’s New York butler – drove her to hospital after she woke in “a pool of blood”. Epstein lied to the doctor about her age, Giuffre alleges, and the two men seemed to enter “a gentlemen’s agreement” in which “whatever was going on between this middle-aged man and his teenage acquaintance […] would be kept quiet”.
“We were girls who no one cared about, and Epstein pretended to care,” Giuffre writes. “At times I think he even believed he cared.” She describes how Epstein “threw what looked like a lifeline to girls who were drowning, girls who had nothing, girls who wished to be and do better.” As a self-described “pleaser” who “survived by acquiescing”, Giuffre writes that Epstein and Maxwell “knew just how to tap into that same crooked vein” her childhood abusers had: abuse cloaked in “a fake mantle of ‘love’.”
Sex as birthright
In March 2001, at Maxwell’s upscale townhouse in London’s Belgravia – where Prince Andrew was famously pictured with his arm around the teenager – Giuffre recalls how Maxwell invited Andrew to guess her age. When the prince correctly guessed 17, he reportedly told her, “My daughters are just a little younger than you.”
Later that night, she writes, Prince Andrew bought the teenager cocktails at Tramp – an exclusive London nightclub – where she and the prince danced awkwardly and the prince “sweated profusely”. In the car, on the way home, Maxwell instructed Giuffre “to do for [Andy] what you do for Jeffrey”.
In November 2019, in his calamitous interview with BBC’s Newsnight, Prince Andrew denied any wrongdoing, claiming he had “no recollection of ever meeting this lady”. He told presenter Emily Maitlis he could not have danced sweatily at Tramp because he had “a peculiar medical condition” that prevented perspiration, caused by what he described as “an overdose of adrenaline” in the Falklands War.
In that interview, Andrew admitted his decision to stay at Epstein’s New York home in December 2010 – months after Epstein was released from jail for soliciting and procuring minors for prostitution – was “the wrong thing to do”. However, the prince claimed his decision was “probably coloured by [his] tendency to be too honourable”.
In her memoir, Giuffre describes Andrew as “friendly enough but entitled” – “as if he believed having sex with [her] was his birthright.” She alleges she had sex with the prince on two more occasions.
The last word
Publishing a book posthumously can be an ethical minefield. Critics often question whether posthumous publication is what the author would have wanted. They point to the author’s right to protect their work and their literary reputation – a right that cannot survive them.
However, Giuffre left no space for speculation. In the email she sent her co-author and publicist before her death, she made her wishes clear:
It is my heartfelt wish that this work be published, regardless of my circumstances at the time. The content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals.
As the memoir progresses, Giuffre’s health spirals. The physical, emotional and mental toll of trauma closes in on her. Epstein is dead. Maxwell is in prison. But Giuffre is still “trapped in an invisible cage”.
“From the start,” she says, “I was groomed to be complicit in my own devastation. Of all the terrible wounds they inflicted, that forced complicity was the most destructive.”
Before she died, Giuffre made a promise to her husband and children that she would try with “all her might” to believe her life mattered. Her final goal was to prevent “the emotional time-bomb” inside her from detonating.
While Giuffre may at last be beyond harm, the truth remains. She – like the hundreds of girls abused by Epstein and his associates – was wronged.
Her fight, like theirs, transcends death: release the Epstein files; hold abusers and their enablers accountable; expose the systems that protect predators; abolish statutes of limitations for the sexual abuse of minors. Ensure no other child suffers. This is what Giuffre wanted.
By publishing her memoir, she ensured the fight would survive her. She made certain her voice would outlast her pain.
In this way, she got the last word.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
Kate Cantrell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
