Laura Sandys has been a political consultant for over 15 years, with experience of political structures across Europe, Turkey, South America and the US. She is currently a trustee of Open University Foundation and the Civic Trust and has recently worked as a journalist and policy strategist in Washington DC. She is a member of the Board of openDemocracy and also works as Senior Research Associate for the Centre For Defence Studies, Kings College.

Recent articles

A month after the London bomb attacks, openDemocracy’s chair Laura Sandys calls on Britain’s government to shift its policy and thinking in relation to the country’s Muslim citizens.

What lies behind the revolt of the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Shi’a followers? Does it signal the end of American rule in Iraq? Laura Sandys sees parallels and portents in an earlier period of colonial rule.

Who will be the vultures, and who the carrion, in a post-Saddam Iraq? The Iraqi opposition plans for transition. The country’s neighbours – especially Turkey, Iran and Syria – covet influence and power after ‘regime change’. America is torn between impulses of order and freedom. The decisive role belongs to Iraq’s people. Will they unite, or fragment?

The latest malpractice crisis in the European Commission puts the new Constitutional Convention on the spot. There can be no democratic European constitution while the EU administration is mired in bureaucratic paranoia and political inertia.

International businesses operating in Europe are seeking to become more "European", argues the communications specialist whose mordant reflection on Washington appeared in openDemocracy 1. But a corporate US-style monoculture doesn’t fit a plural continent. Instead, Europe is tending toward a different business model - one that turns its diversity into a strength.