Edwin Ardener: the life-force of ideas
The work of the social anthropologist Edwin Ardener (1927-87) remains a fertile source of insight and influence, says his former student and editor of a collection of his essays, Malcolm Chapman.
(This article was first published on 21 September 2007)
Terrorism in historical perspective
Terrorism is the defining issue of the post 9/11 world. It is also one of the most confusing and contested words in the political lexicon. The route to understanding, says Fred Halliday, is through making connections: between past and present, state and insurgent violence, nationalist and religious movements.
How to be radical? An interview with Todd Gitlin and George Monbiot
openDemocracy: Todd, what is your view of The Age of Consent?
Todd Gitlin: There are three reasons I like this book. First, I heartily approve its refusal of gesture politics, of the kind of activism which just stands on the sidelines and condemns everything.
Second, I am encouraged by the way George takes government seriously.
Libyan justice: medicine on death row
On 19 December 2006, a Libyan judge announced a verdict in the final appeal of six foreign health workers accused of deliberately infecting 426 children with HIV at the al-Fateh hospital in Benghazi, Libya.
Is the world getting larger or smaller?
It is hard to escape the grand statements: the world is getting smaller; we live in a global village; speed-up has conquered distance; time, finally, has annihilated space. We read of the death of distance, and that geography too is dead. (But then we are subjected, also, to assertions of the "end of history").
Olympian claims about "eras", shifts between great periods of history, are always a bit dubious, not least in their universalising pretensions. But recent changes do raise new questions.
The Indian experience
By virtue of their legitimate capacity to throw "paper stones" at their ostensible rulers, ordinary people have begun to feel that those rulers can be made accountable.
Radical democratic theory never tires of claiming that democracy means something deeper and wider than mere elections, that to have real substance, democracy must embody social and economic equality.
Amnesty International: the politics of morality
The expansion of Amnesty International's remit to include "full spectrum" human rights may entail costs as well as benefits, says Stephen Hopgood, author of "Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International".
The idea that the focus of Amnesty's International's work should be widely extended to accommodate what it called the "full spectrum" of human rights was advocated a year ago on openDemocracy by the organisation's British campaigns director, Stephen Bowen (see "'Full-spectrum' human rights: Amnesty International rethinks", 3 June
This week's editor
Europe from the bottom up
European debate
Democratic Wealth
Nuclear non-proliferation
Women and the Arab Spring
oDRussia at journalismfestival .com
Mali - the plot thickens
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Remote control war
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Vron Ware Up in Arms
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James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do
Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Mary Kaldor on Human security
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
