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

- Walter Benjamin, 1936

About Cynthia Cockburn

Cynthia Cockburn, a feminist researcher and writer, is Honorary Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Her latest book is Antimilitarism:Political and Gender Dynamics of Peace Movements.

Articles by Cynthia Cockburn

“Beyond the Fragments”: I’m a socialist feminist. Can I be a radical feminist too?

Cynthia Cockburn 17 May 2013

The authors of the re-launched Beyond the Fragments take a feminist approach to healing a divided left. They put women’s exploitation by capital firmly on the agenda. But where is the challenge to patriarchy?

The cost of masculine crime

Cynthia Cockburn and Ann Oakley 8 March 2013

Men are, by a huge margin, the sex responsible for violent, sexual and other serious crime. The economic cost of this ‘masculine excess’ in delinquency is staggering - to say nothing of its emotional toll. Why is the social shaping of masculinity not an urgent policy issue?

Le coût du crime masculin

Cynthia Cockburn and Ann Oakley 8 March 2013

Les hommes sont dans une très large mesure, le sexe responsable de crimes violents, sexuels et autres crimes sérieux. Le coût économique de cet « excès masculin » dans la délinquance est ahurissant ? sans parler du prix émotionnel. Pourquoi la structure sociale de la masculinité n’est-elle pas une question politique urgente ?

What kind of feminism does war provoke?

Cynthia Cockburn 2 December 2012

The to-ing and fro-ing about ‘women’s peaceful natures’ is no more than an excitable bubble of argument out of touch with facts on the ground. Antiwar feminism is a pretty holistic feminism that is forged in the crucible of war.

Land, loss and longing: women and equalities in the north of Israel Palestine

Cynthia Cockburn 29 November 2012

Expropriation of their land by the Israeli state is an ongoing injustice for its resident Palestinians. Cynthia Cockburn recalls the 'politics of land' in an alliance forged between Israeli Jewish and Israeli Palestinian women between 1983 and 2008.

Guns, war and the domestic battlefield

Cynthia Cockburn 28 November 2012

As guns proliferate in a worldwide market with few controls, many get diverted from state and rebel armies to petty criminals and 'the man in the street'. Sexual and domestic violence is becoming more deadly, reports Cynthia Cockburn

“Don’t talk to me about war. My life’s a battlefield.”

Cynthia Cockburn 25 November 2012

When we’re looking for the links between war violence and male violence against women in peace time, we need to look for causality and influence, flowing in both directions, says Cynthia Cockburn.

Longing for ‘normality’: women’s experience of post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina

Cynthia Cockburn 20 November 2012

Returning to Bosnia-Herzegovina after 17 years, Cynthia Cockburn finds Bosnian women criticizing their country's nationalist political culture. Longing for civil 'normality', they hark back to the former Yugoslavia and look forward to membership of the European Union, despite the imperfections of the former and increasing divisiveness in the E.U.

Peace movements: violence reduction as common sense

Cynthia Cockburn 17 April 2012

If one thing holds the overall movement of peace movements together it is the goal of violence reduction. There’s a shared conviction that violence is a choice, that there exists, much more often than commonly supposed, a more violent and a less violent course of action

Who do they think they are? War rapists as people

Cynthia Cockburn 19 May 2011

War is social, and examining soldier identity and male bonding may give us insight into how the incidence of sexual violence in war might be reduced, says Cynthia Cockburn

‘N-A-T-O? What’s that stand for?’

Cynthia Cockburn 24 November 2010

How can we cheer NATO for promising equality for women in an institution we deplore? We are saying: ‘military security’ is an oxymoron. Women ascribe a totally different meaning to the word security

Making women's opposition visible to NATO

Cynthia Cockburn 18 October 2010

NATO's continued 'mission creep' demands a degree of militarization that masculinizes and deforms everyday life. The forthcoming NATO Summit in Lisbon will launch a new Strategic Concept. Cynthia Cockburn says we need to be alert

Getting to peace: what kind of movement?

Cynthia Cockburn 19 April 2010

Today’s antiwar movements could become wider and deeper and more united if they took the critique of gender properly to heart

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

Stay Informed

Sign-up for a free weekly email

Advertising notice

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

openDemocracy on Facebook

Our Authors

Lis Howell On broadcasting

Dan Hancox Revel, Riot and Rebellion

Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door

Vron Ware Up in Arms

Jim Gabour Sunday Comics

James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do

Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture

Paul Rogers on Global security

Mary Kaldor on Human security

openDemocracy Ltd, The Print House, 18 Ashwin Street, London, E8 3DL. Tel: +44 (0) 207 193 0676

openDemocracy

Welcome to openDemocracy! We are a digital commons, publishing high quality news analysis, debates and blogs about the world and the way we govern ourselves. More...

Italian triple whammy

Best of the rest:

Arab Awakening | Can Europe Make it? | Drug and Criminal Justice Policy Forum | OurBeeb

OurKingdom

About us
OurKingdom works to investigate and illuminate the crisis of democracy in Britain and analyse how its failings can be redressed.

We encourage original debate untrammelled by party political loyalties.

We ask how we as citizens can secure liberty, human rights, self-government and real democracy. ...more on OurKingdom

Pick of the debates: Democratic Wealth: building a citizens' economy, edited by Stuart White, uses republican theory to explore ideas around how to democratise the economy. Co-hosted with Politics in Spires, a blog sponsored by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

oD Russia

50.50

Recent articles on 50.50

50.50 Dialogues

About 50.50
50.50 is openDemocracy's section dedicated to exploring issues of gender equality and social justice at the global level.

We are committed to promoting human rights and inclusive democracy through dialogue and debate. But a global debate without the female half of humanity is neither global nor democratic. With this in mind, 50.50 publishes women's analysis, insight and views on current affairs.

Can Europe Make It?

Spread the word

Spread the word is a brand new section of openDemocracy's not-for-profit web platform.

This space is for other not-for-profit organisations of all kinds to publicise your activities and spread the exchange of ideas.

You will be able to link to all your publications, and events anywhere in the world. You will have your own openDemocracy page and all new announcements will be ticker-taped to our front page.

This organisation subscription is available for a modest annual fee, dependent on the size of your organisation.

Please contact Jonathan Bowles at supporters@opendemocracy.net if you are interested in joining.

If you're interested in developing editorial projects on openDemocracy, please see our Editorial partnerships page

We are grateful to the following organisations for their support in developing this initiative:

Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

openSecurity

openEconomy

Arab Awakening

In the months following the start of the Arab Revolutions, articles and analysis poured into openDemocracy from contributors across the Middle East and Europe. Gradually, the impact of Tahrir Square began to extend well beyond the Middle East as democratic inspiration travelled from east to west. Arab Awakening tries to capture that inspiration and use it to help us read a rapidly changing world.

"As students of politics is it is vital to study the power of imagination." -Professor Charles Tripp, SOAS

Debates