Quote of the day

You have to make choices even when there's nothing to choose from

Syndicate content

Navigation

editor's note

openDemocracy hosts debates. We do not advocate an editorial line. Editor’s notes are light, brief comments on aspects of the current edition - and how it relates to current events.

We published 750 articles this year. Here are fifty of the best!
openDemocracy asked its editor to choose his three favourite texts from 2004. Read the rest of this post...
A party leader and international statesman calls for a profound change in the way politics happens. Read the rest of this post...
Why is an argument between two optimists worth time and attention in a dark world? openDemocracy editor Anthony Barnett defends the publication of Tom Nairn’s long and challenging response to Timothy Garton Ash Read the rest of this post...
The lesson of Tom Nairn’s post–imperial critique of Timothy Garton Ash’s “Free World” is that nation–states and their peoples, not Anglospheric empires, will shape the 21st century. But this process needs a politics. Where is it? Read the rest of this post...
Bush’s re–election has opened a new historical period. Tough, clear thought on a global scale is needed to understand and democratically shape it, says Anthony Barnett. Read the rest of this post...
John Kerry’s supporters must now avoid finger-pointing and self-flagellation, says Anthony Barnett in New York – and instead build a new, international politics of globalisation to replace Bush’s politics of fear. Read the rest of this post...
The most important campaign of all, for democratic legitimacy and moral respect, has found the United States president wanting. Read the rest of this post...
The American election debate has ignored Israel and Palestine. All the more reason for openDemocracy to pose the issue in a responsible, serious way, says Anthony Barnett. Read the rest of this post...
Anthony Barnett remembers Gerhard Schröder’s speechwriter and a formative influence on openDemocracy for whom “nothing was foreign except the second rate", followed by the eulogy Anthony gave at the memorial meeting in front of the Chancellor and Foreign Minister Joskar Fischer.
The choices the United States made after 11 September 2001 raise fundamental questions of political judgment. Anthony Barnett outlines how openDemocracy seeks to answer them. Read the rest of this post...
The United Nations is seeking to reinvent itself. The Iraq disaster should make sure the world listens, says Anthony Barnett. Read the rest of this post...
Several openDemocracy readers felt that our presentation of the Iraqi roundtable was biased. The editor responds. Read the rest of this post...
We publish, you pay. The deal? Quality. The price? Modest. The reward? Your money funds Iraqis too. The catch? You have to read articles like this from the editor. Read the rest of this post...
As the United States abandons a key Iraqi ally, is its intention to focus on a new military target: Iran? Read the rest of this post...
The abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison poses the most severe question for the United States: can it consider non-Americans as moral equals? Read the rest of this post...
The recent experience of Spain, India and Turkey highlight a profound trend in international affairs: the globalisation of democracy. Read the rest of this post...
One year on from Saddam’s fall, Iraq’s people need more help, interest and attention from the international community. Read the rest of this post...
openDemocracy’s aim in publishing three new columnists covering America’s election is not neutrality but a well-argued partiality that will engage and include people from around the world. Read the rest of this post...
The attack in Madrid should not be looked at as only European, or even only political, but in the context of a human chain of being and responsibility. Read the rest of this post...
Syndicate content