Brookings Today, 9/30/14

A roundup of some of the content published today by Brookings.

• The Primaries Project. Introducing a new project that examines the structure of our two-party political system and what insights are possible into the Democratic and Republican parties.
• Three Latin Americas. Ernesto Talvi argues that Latin America should be thought of as “three distinct regions with three very different sets of policy challenges.”
• A new era of Afghanistan-U.S. cooperation. John Evans discusses Afghanistan’s new president and the bilateral security agreement that was just signed between the two countries.
• How the war on drugs damages black social mobility. Jonathan Rothwell looks at drug arrest data to see how the “War on Drugs” has been fought unequally in black and white populations, resulting in longer-term negative effects for the upward social mobility of black Americans.
• The Hong Kong protests. Richard Bush examines Hong Kong’s protest tradition and says that such demonstrations “are at the heart of the dilemma of Hong Kong’s political system.”
• Houston: America on demographic fast-forward. Jennifer Bradley explains that more than 42 percent of Houston’s children have at least one foreign-born parent, compared to the national rate of 23 percent, and why that matters.
• Civilian drones and privacy. Wells Bennett argues for a blended approach to regulating drones, with states taking center stage.

Charmaine Crutchfield contributed to this post.