“Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property system.”

- Walter Benjamin, 1936

About James Ron

James Ron is the Stassen Chair of International Affairs at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School & Department of Political Science; an affiliated professor at CIDE, a public research institute in Mexico; and at Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

Articles by James Ron

Anglo-American media: why so interested in Latin America’s human rights abuses?

James Ron and Emilie Hafner Burton 30 January 2013

In the 1980s and 1990s, elite Anglo-American media sources cared more about Latin American abuses than those occurring anywhere else in the world. Why?

Making schools safe

James Ron 16 December 2012

To really make schools safe, we’d have to turn them into fortified enclaves, with perimeters of concrete, sandbags at the entrance, and a well trained team of alert, heavily-armed, and strongly-defended infantry.

Foreign aid to local NGOs: good intentions, bad policy

Kendra Dupuy, James Ron, and Aseem Prakash 15 November 2012

International solidarity is a wonderful idea, and the notion of transferring resources from North to South for good causes is morally attractive. The mechanics of doing this properly, however, are far more complex.

Revolutionizing the Canadian social justice sector

Howard Ramos and James Ron 15 April 2012

Environmental groups seem to have attracted particular government ire. In other cases, officials have labelled civic groups unpatriotic… The Conservatives may have done Canadians a favour. Deprived of federal funding, independent activists will now have to learn new ways of ethically raising money from individuals, communities, and businesses.

Mexico's parallel worlds

James Ron 11 December 2011

It is strange how you have to go abroad to see the ability of wildly divergent realities to persist, side-by-side, as if nothing were more natural.

Middle East hawks should welcome the UN Palestine vote

James Ron 21 September 2011

At their very best, Israeli-Palestinian partition plans envision the same kind of complex ethnic patchwork rejected by western diplomats in Bosnia.

This week's editor

Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

Europe from the bottom up

European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

A social Europe must be a political Europe
Bo Stråth

As Europe is provincialized: a reply to Etienne Balibar
Sandro Mezzadra

European debate

A republican call for a basic income
Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark

Nuclear non-proliferation

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

Mali - the plot thickens

Remote control war

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Conference coverage from 50.50

Conference. Moving beyond Militarism and War to a Nonviolent World: A Forum Devoted to Sharing Women-Driven Solutions

Articles exploring the themes of the fourth international Nobel Women's Initiative conference May 28-31. Jennifer Allsopp and Heather McRobie will be reporting for 5050

Cities in Conflict

Half-capacity Jordan: whose stories do we need?
Munir Atalla

Madeleine Rees

The incompetent many or the corrupt few?

Grigorii Golosov

"I protest": challenging the war policies of the United States

Ann Wright

Women and the language of peace protest

Ruth Rosen

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