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We praise democracy most of the time, but we practice it as if we had accepted every argument against it, as if we believed it must depress the level of culture and of public life

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Grahame Thompson

Grahame Thompson is professor of political economy at The Open University. He is the co-author (with Paul Hirst) of Globalisation in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance (1999) and Between Hierarchies and Markets: The Logic and Limits of Network Forms of Organisation (2003).

Recent articles


Responsibility and neo-liberalism

The triumph of neo-liberal globalisation is also the imposition of a new mode of governance of institutions and individuals, to which the idea of responsibility is central. Grahame Thompson examines this achievement and assesses what can be done to address it.

Talking democracy: China's lesson in Denmark

A Danish experiment in citizen-led decision-making left Grahame Thompson convinced that "deliberative democracy" needs to rethink the balance between process and outcome.

What is fundamentalism?

A fear of difference drives fundamentalists towards sameness. In that impulse lies the seed of a path beyond war, says Grahame Thompson.

Learning tolerance

Global peace and security will best be advanced not by the deep institutional changes the United Nations’ high-level panel is likely to advocate, but by modest, incremental - and imaginative - steps, says Grahame Thompson.

The limits to globalisation: questions for Held and Wolf

Grahame Thompson enters the debate on the reality and potential of globalisation with a dual warning to David Held and Martin Wolf: the international financial system is unsustainable – and its coming crisis may undermine both Held’s radical reformism and Wolf’s optimistic certainty.

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