Big-but-piecemeal reform will only exacerbate weaknesses elsewhere in the Chinese system, since everything is connected... Fenby isn't just right about the biases and simplifications that are commonplace in airport-book ‘polemics’ about China - he is right for the right reasons. 

The link between ‘karamah’ and ‘al hurriyah”, the call for dignified existence and the rejection of oppression has given birth to a further crucial concept – that of the social responsibility of public authority.  This cannot be achieved by maintaining the economic polices of the old regimes. 

As formal education in Britain faces commodification, networks of informal participative learning are flourishing. openDemocracy is building ties with these through our relationship to the Raymond Williams Foundation, whose residential last week explored the theme of the Long Revolution.

Every ultra-rich person has the income of 100 poor people. But this is not Dickensian England or Depression-era America. It is the Italy of today. Halting the rise of the super-rich will be a crucial issue for the politics of the future.

NATO attempts to brush over the original intentions behind the Chicago Summit may prove successful, given an extremely able diplomatic bureaucracy and an environment with a short memory span. But despite 'smart defense', three crucial issues left off the agenda could spell the end of NATO relevance.

Community organisatons, children's clubs, even doctors and health services, frequently lament that it is hard to get the people who most need help through their doors. The answer, a small charity in North-east England has found, is to get out on to the streets

Europe's crisis is being felt at multiple levels, from the future of the eurozone and divisions between member-states to the rise of populist forces. But is the crisis likely to lead to the European Union's disintegration? The precedent of the Soviet collapse offers some lessons, says Ivan Krastev.

The 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia was portrayed as a beacon of hope for democracy and progress in the region. Far from developing society towards a free market, however, the current government has retrenched and its policies and programmes are redolent of a planned economy. This can only end badly, says Vakhtang Komakhidze

Can we imagine how real-time online direct democracy might improve the following: freedom of speech; the democratic process; the accountability of the government to the electorate; fairness and the rule of law?

In Tunisia the official Facebook page of the moderately Islamist Nahda party urged Franco-Tunisians to vote massively for Hollande to "dégage" Sarkozy. 

If we want to develop effective co-operation within and among the member states of the EU, history should be kept at a distance. Living in the past is not feasible, and this is equally true for Euro-scepticism, the application of human rights as well as the fight against racism and extremism.   

The BBC is one of Britain's great institutions. But, like all other public broadcasters, it faces threats from the internet, the government, and the modern television system. How can it best overcome these challenges, adapt, and survive? 

The Coalition's economic 'Plan A' ultimately has a strategy of wage repression at its heart. This will undermine the conditions needed for economic revival but, above all, will impose incalculable human costs on the mass of British people 

OurKingdom announces the launch of a new six month debate on the most important cultural and current affairs instution in Britain.

45 years on, the International War Crimes Tribunal set up by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre is being used to address abuses of migrants’ rights in Europe. It is time to inject solidarity and accountability into the European migration regime, Jennifer Allsopp reports from Stockholm on Tribunal 12

European politicians are seeking to follow the moods of the public rather than to shape them. Europeans do not want Europe to fail, but Europe cannot rest solely on the actions of the German Chancellor, the French President, or the President of the European Central Bank.

We need to build a civil society voice to rival the corporate lobbies, which are protecting their lucrative stake in the price speculation commodities market. We have the choice to make this the decade where world hunger ends.