Civil society

The pressure group Compass is taking action to place the public interest back at the heart of Britain. Joe Cox of the group's campaigns team reports on their latest event, a citizen's assembly.

This question has provoked extensive debate not only among the Iranian left and democratic forces, but between these forces and the extremist neo-liberal forces in Iran. Disoriented progressives world-wide have failed to understand the nature of the Iranian regime.

The Anonymous 'V for Vendetta' mask is an icon of the Occupy movement. But how does this band of deviant web pirates fit with the Occupiers ethics of responsibility, transparency and democracy? Cole Stryker's new book goes some way to deconstruct the generalisations.

Englishness is finally finding a voice, after more than a century. Why has it been muted this long, and is it time now for a strong civic nation, or will an England of blood and soil emerge?

The dominant interventionist approach to peace and security in Africa by-passes the hard work of creating domestic political consensus and instead imposes models of government favoured by western powers. The emergent African methodology offers a chance to develop locally-rooted solutions too often sidelined.

Peacebuilding and development can no longer be thought of in terms of what was always an over-simplified polarisation between the powerful stability of the giver and the weak turbulence of the beneficiary. It was always wrong to see the world that way; now it’s impossible.

The new 'fiscal compact' treaty agreed at Monday's summit aims to take vital economic policy choices out of the reach of democratic decision-making. Beyond that, there is no new thinking, nothing to stimulate growth, nothing to give some hope to the 23 million unemployed – and those who will join them as the recession deepens.

Russians keen to punish Vladimir Putin at the polls on March 4 have four opposition candidates to choose from, but all are tarnished in some way by their links to the government. Grigorii Golosov analyses what voting strategy will work best to build on the momentum of this winter’s protests, and cautions against accepting any of the candidates’ claims to be true opposition material.

The partner of an abuse survivor convicted of killing a suspected paedophile calls for longer sentences for sexual offences against children

The Scottish independence referendum may be more than a question of 'in' or 'out'. Would a third option - devo max - empower the people through more choice, or muddy the waters?

Crucial to the argument for Scottish independence is the idea that leaving the political union of the United Kingdom will not mean leaving the social union. But what is this 'social union'?

In New Orleans in the summer of 2005 you needed transport and fuel in order to eat. In this landscape of dead refrigerators and flooded stores, abandoned by government, the author describes how individual improvisation woven into collective action fed empty stomachs

What is a public library for? Costa coffee and "bums on seats"? or the promise of a better world? The managerialised nightmare of a London council's cost-cutting misunderstandings is glimpsed at through the deep stacks by a not-yet-defeated librarian and idealist

Salman Rushdie's wholly involuntary no-show at the Jaipur Literary Festival, a big event in India's cultural calendar, highlights yet again the country’s failure to uphold freedom of speech as well as the authorities’ cynical readiness to pander to religious fanatics for narrow electoral advantage

England has a political identity, but how can this be given an expression? English votes for English laws? An English Parliament? Let the discussion of practical solutions begin.

"How the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 would end entitlement to comprehensive health care in England" republished from The Lancet with thanks.

Faith groups and charities must join the medical profession in strong, relentless and effective opposition to the government's wrecking of the NHS.

Being English is not a question of blood, of purity: it has always been a multi-racial alliance.

Warehousing troubled children in large prisons does not work.

Around the globe, new forms of governance are being sought to counter-balance the hyper-empire of global capitalism. Scotland is developing its own resistance, could England follow suit?