Might be on your radar already, but thought I'd share these:

Pankaj Ghemawat's "World 3.0," has good data on how much globalization exists

Tyler's Cowen's "The Great Stagnation," has ideas on how to improve innovation to keep growth going in the first-world.

Ghemawat: http://ghemawat.com/books/world-30.aspx
Cowen: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Stagnation-Low-Hanging-Eventually-ebook/dp/B004H0M8QS

This article turned me around from rabidly anti-nuclear to pro-nuclear (Thorium). I am surprised Thorium has not been developed as a "Manhattan" style crash program to save the planet. What are ther politics of why it has not been adopted?

Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly. (Forbes Magazine)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/09/11/is-thorium-the-biggest-energy-breakthrough-since-fire-possibly/

He didn't exactly write anything that couldn't be unthought, but I would say that the ideas put forth by Mohamed Bouazizi and the actions that he accompanied them with were probably the most unforgettable (and influential) of the year.

More than anything else I'd say it affected how people see the way the world works, and more importantly, how it should work.

I nominate FP's own Peter Feaver! When it comes to political science and foreign policy, you'll be hard up to find anyone better, he's by far one of the most underrated political scientist active today. Choosing Peter for my selection wasn't the hard task though, it was finding "one" piece out of all his material to nominate. The reason i choose his blog post- " How can President Obama lead if he can't persuade", was because Peter puts forth an argument that is so rare in the political spectrum today - moderating your views! I truly believe this article captures the politics of today (purism), and show's a person striving to correct it. Overall, i suggest it worth a read. http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/25/how_can_president_obama_lead_if_he_cant_persuade

off the top of my head is "The Great Stagnation" but in a year with a dearth of quality work this short piece has perhaps overly praised. I did also enjoy "Zero Sum Future."

I haven't finished all of them but I offer these for consideration:

"Why the West Rules for Now" Ian Morris

"Civilization" Niall Ferguson

"The Quest" Daniel Yergin

Naomi Klein writing for The Nation. She does sort of re-hash the usual argument as to why global warming is real (i.e. the scientific consensus) so it's not great if you're looking to be convinced of whether it truly is happening or not - but it is an excellent critique of free market fundamentalism and does a great job demonstrating the culture bias that certain groups have towards denying environmental problems/ resisting environmental policy

http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate

"And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/owss-beef-wall-street-isnt-winning-its-cheating-20111025#ixzz1gbpADb9j

Afraid that I'm going to have to be "wishy-washy" and instead of nominating a single article as such, draw my fellow readers' attention to the following online journals.

Below is the link to the Real-World Economics Review which is well worth spending a couple of days reading through.

http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/

Also of vital importance is the Journal of World-Systems Research.

http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol6/number2/

A lethal shortcoming of the way in which professional Economics is presently conducted and taught is due to the "mathematical" pretensions of many of its practitioners, leading to a profoundly stupid ahistoricism and absurd pretense of apoliticality .

So if I was forced to choose a single work from 2011 it would not be an essay but rather a book.

In 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein published the fourth volume of his "The Modern World System: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant 1789-1914"

Not from 2011, but two very interesting works of economic history published recently are:

David Hackett Fischer "The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History"

Joel Mokyr "The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy"

Dan, this isn't an Albie nom, since there's no single work (yet - he is under book contract) that he has published in 2011. But you seem very interested in the impact of new media on democracy, social protest, civic networks abroad, and if you haven't yet come across any of his work, I recommend you spend some time on the blog of Ethan Zuckerman, http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/, who recently took up the leadership at the MIT Center for Civic Media (description here at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/zuckerman-civic-media.html). Spend some time flipping through this hyper-geek's back catalog of posts and I guarantee you'll find something to ruminate on.

Ethan's probably best known for his "cute cat theory" (http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/07/16/the-connection-between-cute-cats-and-web-censorship/) but that was back in 2007, he continues to develop it and other notions. The guy is a font of new ideas in and out of academe. I'd try and schedule lunch with him sometime around Boston.

Oh, and he's an Eph, too : ) I can't pinpoint one thing he's published in calendar year 2011 but if he hasn't been on your radar (maybe he has), this is my academic Christmas present to you - cheers -

I was impressed with these two pieces out of Brookings linking the changing global economic balance with the challenge of eliminating poverty. Like all good ideas, they seem obvious once you've heard them - but until someone articulates those ideas, we're oblivious to them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/25/AR2011012504735.html

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/0517_global_poverty_trends_chandy.aspx