Civil society

Typically missing from most of the plans put forward in the UK media debate is any really innovative thought about how to raise new resources to support high-quality journalism in new times

The plan to construct a section of the new Moscow-St.Petersburg motorway through the legally-protected Khimki Forest Park will destroy a rare eco-system. Dogged local resistance has turned this into a national, even international issue. But it has not derailed the plan

From the English Secondary Students’ Association to social entrepreneurship ‘enternships’ young people can take the initiative and make the difference. Making Good Society throws down its third gauntlet – they want to see everyone plugged in

Government policy of 'managed migration' has backfired and produced public mistrust related to a vicious circle, of the assurance of control and the reality of failure. With the major parties set to continue this system, Ruth Grove White argues that there is ample scope to challenge the principles behind managed migration. We just need to be brave enough to make the case.

"I may able to give my children whatever they may need and ask for but the sacrifices in exchange of all these is far cruel, I was not there to take care of them when they were sick, I never see them grow.....migrant or second class citizen I may be, I am one of the migrants who cry for any injustices and abuse in job, labour law and fellow mankind."

At what point do the rights of migrant domestic workers as human beings and as workers start to take precedence over their status as migrants?

Migration has opened up the chance for us to see new places and experience new things, but not everyone has the same freedoms to move where they want when they want - with some facing quite stark penalties for their border crossings.

Arthur Koestler, whose turbulent life charts the intellectual history of the 20thc in the West, has finally found a worthy biographer in Michael Scammell. A youthful communist and survivor of Franco’s prisons, Koestler developed into one of the West’s most persuasive crusaders against communism.

In the second 'Making Good Society' article, Tony Kendle argues that we have to relearn community action and how a society works together if we are to protect vulnerable people, not just from climate change but also from the solutions that society arrives at

The time has run out for traditional military answers. Ours is a culture of war, but cultures can change. We need education in peace and in international understanding, as so much more

Laudable yet formalistic plans, committees and laws have been put in place to address violence against women, yet impunity remains rampant. Should the measure of progress be more mechanisms or less violence ?

The Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society launches its report calling for a radical devolution of power and active voice from parliament to the family. In the first of a series of Inquiry articles, Geoff Mulgan claims that three crises have launched a major civil society challenge

The words of the women paralleled each other as they described how armed violence in the home and community, armed conflict, and the availability and misuse of guns feed each other in an unending cycle. These are not simple issues with easy solutions, but Sarah Masters says that this cannot justify apathy, silence, and inaction

In this interview for oDRussia, Prof.Alena Ledeneva talks to Oliver Carroll about the prospects for judicial reform in Russia. Medvedev’s efforts amount to far more than rhetoric, argues Ledeneva. Her ongoing research into the subject suggests that they strike at the heart of Russia’s informal system of government.

The doubters of global warming are emboldened by their new ability - as in the “climategate” affair - to put climate researchers on the defensive. But the experience of comparable assaults on the discipline of peace studies in the 1980s suggests that hostile scrutiny can have longer-term benefits for the target.

Olga Kudeshkina made headlines in 2004 as the first Russian judge to flag up political interference in the judicial system. Dismissed for her resistance, she took her case to the European Court of Human Rights and won. Kudeshkina outlines the continued political pressure felt by the judiciary and the barriers in the way of President Medvedev’s intentions to reform.

Downtown Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, is ablaze with lights and full of chic shops now. But the paralysing fear remains. Human Rights Watch’s Tanya Lokshina and her Memorial colleagues tell a rare visitor from the West about the kidnappings, about the relatives too fearful to complain...

While bullying (see our Soldier’s Tales) is common to all armies, the aberration that is dedovshchina in Russia’s army has a specific history and causes, argues Rodric Braithwaite. Military reform is needed to root it out.

In his final letter home from the army our conscript Tolya “finds” a mobile phone, is pursued by a mad officer and wonders what kind of man the army’s made of him

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