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FROM REPUBLIC TO “EMPIRE”: A STAR WARS’ PALPATINE-INSPIRED WORST-CASE MODEL FOR THE UNITED STATES IN 2026–2028 by D. Conterno (2026)

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  FROM REPUBLIC TO “EMPIRE”: A STAR WARS’ PALPATINE-INSPIRED WORST-CASE MODEL FOR THE UNITED STATES IN 2026–2028 by D. Conterno (2026) Purpose and method (what this is and what it is not) This article is a red-team scenario exercise: a structured “worst-case” pathway that asks, “If democratic backsliding through executive aggrandisement were to accelerate, what might it look like, and what early warning indicators would we watch?” This is a standard analytic technique used to challenge complacency and reduce groupthink; the UK Ministry of Defence’s Red Teaming Handbook describes red teaming as a way to recognise and correct biased or constrained thinking before it hardens into faulty judgement. It is not an assertion that the U.S. government is running a Star Wars like Palpatine plan. It is a stress test of institutions. In democratic-backsliding research, Nancy Bermeo describes a shift away from overt coups towards “executive aggrandisement” and more subtle institutional erosi...
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From Profit to Prosperity by D. Conterno

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  From Profit to Prosperity: Re-constitutionalising the SDGs with Human Rights Primacy and Bottom-Up Civic Capability by D. Conterno (2026) ABSTRACT This paper advances three integrated critiques and a constructive redesign proposal for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, it argues that the widely operationalised “People–Planet–Profit” triad (as used in triple-bottom-line practice) creates a structural antagonism between firm-level profit optimisation and civilisation-level flourishing under biophysical constraint. It proposes a disciplined substitution: “People–Planet–Prosperity”, where “profit” is an organisational residual and “prosperity” is a societal state characterised by capabilities, security, institutional trust and ecological integrity. Second, it argues that the SDG architecture, while “anchored in human rights”, lacks an explicit, enforceable Human Rights primacy layer, leaving implementation vulnerable to authoritarian drift, selective compliance and “...
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The Nobel Peace Prize War by D. Conterno

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  The Nobel Peace Prize War: Politicisation, Symbolic Transfer and the 2009–2026 Legitimacy Contest by D. Conterno (2026)     Abstract T his paper analyses how the Nobel Peace Prize has become a site of overt political contestation, using a timeline from President Barack Obama’s 2009 award through President Donald Trump’s 2025–2026 public grievance campaign following the 2025 award to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. Using documentary analysis of primary sources (Norwegian Nobel Committee press releases, official Norwegian Government statements, and Nobel Prize institutional material) and corroborated reporting (Reuters, Associated Press, and other reputable outlets), the paper distinguishes between:           The legal-historical fact of laureate status.           The physical symbols of the Prize (medal, diploma, and prize money), which may be given away without transferring laureate statu...
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