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In the euphoric moment immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union, few would have guessed that Ukraine – an industrialized country with an educated workforce and vast natural resources – would suffer stagnation for the next 28 years. Neighboring Poland, which was poorer than Ukraine in 1991, managed almost to triple its per capita GDP (in purchasing power parity) over the next three decades.

Renowned experts from politics, academia and civil society will gather Oct. 18-19 in Berlin for the Pearson Global Forum, entitled “Beyond Walls | Deconstructing Conflict.” Inspired by the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the forum will discuss lessons learned from the German experience and research-based solutions to help prevent, de-escalate and resolve current global conflicts. The University of Chicago’s Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts will host the forum, near where the Berlin Wall used to divide the city. Keynote speakers including Markus Meckel, former foreign minister of the GDR; and Roland Jahn, acting Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records, will give first-hand insight into the political and social events of autumn 1989 and the lessons learned since then.

The latest book by the duo of ‘Why Nations Fail’ fame – Daron Acemoglu of MIT and James Robinson of Chicago – titled ‘The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies and the Fate of Liberty’ was released on 24 September. The narrow corridor is a concept coined by them to depict how the malfunctioning states and societies could narrow the path through which citizens could attain and sustain liberty. It is a midway path that prevents societies from moving into the two extremes, authoritarian rule by government, at one end, and lawlessness by extreme social groups, at the other.