Of interests, territories and dreams

This week: how all institutions develop their own ideologies; the Teeth-Snake Index of economic development; and what is an oblast anyway?

A half-formed theory. Public institutions develop a sense of their mission that may or may not align with what the rest of us think that function is; the more important or prestigious the institution, the more likely those two things are to diverge. 

Sometimes, that mission may be a simple matter of institutional self-interest. A big reason for Cressida …