View this email in your browser Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good   May 31, 2019 Fareed: The Crises Are Over, but Populism Isn't The crises that initially drove populists into office have receded, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column, but paradoxically, populism hasn't.  "Consider the two issues that most people seem to think are fueling populism in the Western world: fears about immigrants and a lack of economic opportunity," Fareed writes. "In both cases, the crisis appears to be over, but the fury remains." Wealthy economies are booming, and immigration into Europe is down—and yet, because elections are "lagging indicators," populists are still drawing support, as seen in Europe's recent vote. But while populists demagogue those issues, their passing offers an optimistic lesson: Democracies may look messy, because debate happens in public, but the most pressing problems usually get solved. Will Israel's Turmoil Mean the Death of Peace? After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government, Aaron David Miller writes for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that his "fall has been breathtaking, and his future is stunningly uncertain," only seven weeks after his election victory. Netanyahu's failure also could doom the Jared-Kushner-led US peace plan: Its release has already been delayed, and with new Israeli elections to be held this fall, the Trump administration likely won't unveil its plan before November, writes Herb Keinon in The Jerusalem Post. By that time, President Trump will be gearing up for his reelection campaign and likely won't dig in for a peace-deal push. Grading Trump on Foreign Policy President Trump earns a relatively high mark on his China policy (B+) from The Atlantic's global-affairs writers, who dole out grades for Trump on a host of foreign-policy issues; on China, a bipartisan, get-tough consensus seems to back up his pugilistic approach, Mike Giglio concludes. Despite residing in the White House during the fall of the caliphate, Trump scores lowest on ISIS (D), for merely following president Obama's playbook to victory (the US-led coalition was on the verge of retaking Mosul when Trump was sworn in) and endangering coalition gains by moving to pull troops out completely, a decision from which he has backed away. How Tiananmen Shaped China's Economy The Tiananmen Square protests—which ended 30 years ago next week—marked not just a political turning point for China, but an economic one, Jeremy Page writes in The Wall Street Journal. Before the protests, a generation of liberal-minded Chinese economists were promoting capitalistic reforms, and the 1980s saw a boom in small businesses. After the protests, they "became targets of the state," Page writes, and China turned—permanently—away from liberal reforms and toward a state-run economy. Even through later reform efforts, China would never re-embrace the economic ideas it shut out after Tiananmen, Page writes. Is Direct Democracy a Risk to Immigrants? That's what a new study in the American Journal of Political Science may suggest. Researchers looked at Switzerland, where municipalities decide on immigrants' naturalization requests. While those decisions have often been made by public referendum, a series of court orders forced most municipalities to transfer that authority to officials sitting on municipal councils, and in places where such a change was suddenly forced—in effect, where a transition was made from direct to indirect democracy, for deciding citizenship—researchers found a 60% jump in naturalization rates. Which implies that while "there are advantages of bringing policymaking closer to the people, one important concern is that the trend toward direct democracy might threaten the interests of minorities," the authors write. Share Tweet Fwd unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences  Copyright © 2019 Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to CNN newsletters. Our mailing address is: Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. One CNN Center Atlanta, GA 30303 Add us to your address book What did you like about today's Global Briefing? What did we miss? Let us know what you think: GlobalBriefing@cnn.com Sign up to get updates on your favorite CNN Original Series, special CNN news coverage and other newsletters.​   Sign Up for Fareed's Global Briefing