We praise democracy most of the time, but we practice it as if we had accepted every argument against it, as if we believed it must depress the level of culture and of public life
Quote of the day
Avaaz/Mugabe Petition Email & RSSSign up to oD's editorial summaries email:
Navigation |
 |
Blogs 50.50NEW - A global debate without women's voices is neither global nor democratic. openDemocracy's 50.50 initiative addresses this imbalance, exploring issues of gender equality and empowerment on a world scale. This multi-authored blog tackles sexual violence and security, reproductive rights, domestic violence, trafficking and enslavement, forced marriage and patriarchy, and demands a space for women's voices to be listened to.  dLiberationThis is openDemocracy’s blog on deliberation and democracy. How in a complex, changing world can we be governed by wise decisions that we can trust: that protect differences and liberty, ensure equality of representation in an unequal world, and are accountable and legitimate?  OurKingdomOurKingdom is a lively conversation on the destiny of the United Kingdom's democracy; its constitution, liberties, justice, hopes, fears, absurdities and national identities. A growing network of contributors welcomes all British democrats.  Nobel Women's InitiativeThe first conference of the Nobel Women's Initiative took place in Ireland in June 2007. Under the tagline "Women redefining peace in the middle east and beyond", six female Nobel peace laureates gathered hundreds of activists and policy makers to discuss ways to peacefully change our world. The openDemocracy team, accompanied by four international rapporteurs, blogged and podcast from the 3 day event.  openSummitopenDemocracy covered the G8 2007 summit from a women's perspective. Women NGO workers, policy makers, activists and journalists worldwide were invited to speak up about the issues they wanted to see addressed in Heiligendamm. They wrote passionately on climate change, micro-credits, domestic violence, fundamentalism, reproductive rights and discrimination. The Democratic ImageIn today's digital age, what is the relationship between photography and democracy? This was the question posed at the groundbreaking Democratic Image conference in Manchester in April 2007. openDemocracy hosted the online debate between professional and amateur photographers, artists, podcasters and journalists on photography, democracy and globalisation in the digital age. Women UNlimitedIn 2007, the concept of 'gender equality' still has a long way to go. openDemocracy attended the 51st United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The resulting blog-diary explored the challenges, struggles and small victories exposed during the conference.  London Festival of EuropeAs the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty was celebrated throughout Europe, the London Festival of Europe aimed to "catalyse public debate about European realities". openDemocracy reported the festival's 10 days of events and lectures, hosting debate on questions of European identity, multilingualism, media and much more.  World Social Forum 2007openDemocracy columnist Patricia Daniel covered the World Social Forum 2007 live from Nairobi, Kenya. She interviewed a lot of people, walked around tirelessly, listened to heated debates and finally asked; "Is another world possible from a women's perspective?" oD Today Are oil prices rising because of semantics?A calm has returned to the economics blogosphere .... if not to the oil markets. Krugman saves his position by arguing that "speculation" only occurs when stocks go up, and refusing to consider the possibility of oil-in-the-ground being a stock. SWhen Krugman wondered about the political biases in calling "Speculation" he was not admitting, at some level, his own bias. Krugman wants to believe that oil prices are "about right" now. I wonder where he stands on carbon taxes and post-Kyoto? Does he believe that peak oil will do the job of cleaning up the environment without intervention?Martin Feldstein in the WSJ is very convincing to my mind. He takes up the difference between storable and non-storable commodity prices that I emphasised here. Here is an instructive comparison between economists and political realists:First, the increasingly abstracted stock-flow models from Paul Krugman and Mark Thoma.
Second, a suggested account of the recent oil price rise (from the oildrum):
A good summary of the positions by Mark Thoma (a bit of theory) Arnold Kling is not sure where to place his bets, but has a good counterfactual question to Krugman: does he believe oil prices were at the right fundamental level last year when they were at $60/bll. And if not, why weren't stocks disappearing then? Mark Thoma has a good summary of yesterday's econ-blogosphere debate on the speculation question. He ends up on the question of what single cause can account for the run-up in both agricultural products and oil prices. I am not sure he should be such an ardent Occamist here - compare these 2 graphs, of oil and wheat prices this year, and ask what sort of common explanation you might want: The economics blogosphere is abuzz ... is the oil price being driven up by market fundamentals or by some sort of manipulative activity? Paul Krugman has a short theoretical piece here challenging the speculator-spotters to come up with a story that fits the facts. Speculators ahoy
Fundamentalism and oil marketsTony Curzon Price Slippery oil prices
Slippery oil pricesTony Curzon Price [quote=Erik van Zuylen]Euro 2008 has been quite a spectacle so far. Especially the teams of Spain, Russia, Turkey and the Netherlands have shown why football can be a work of art. Living in the Netherlands it's impossible to be unaffected by the collective emotion sweeping the country, while the television shows images of the orange mass that is invading Switserland and Swiss elderly people claiming 'they have never seen anything like this in their whole live'.With the IAEA recently reporting that they believe is Iran is still witholding information on its nuclear program, and the Bush administration winding down, where will US-Iran relations head? How will US-Iranian relations develop in the remaining of 2008? |
|
50.50Podcast: Women and Memory, a report from Egypt In the blog: Positive Anger, Zainab Magdy Elections Most discussed articles...
blogRoll
|
