Ideas

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.

In response to a growing realisation that neo-liberal capitalism is morally and literally bankrupt, Britain’s political leadership have provided three visions of ethical capitalism for us to aspire to. So, is there such a thing as ethical capitalism? And why is this question being asked now?

On January 27, in its 25th award ceremony, the 2011 Olaf Palme Prize for International Understanding and Common Security was given to Lydia Cacho Ribeiro and Roberto Saviano for their tireless and often lonely efforts to expose criminal networks despite great personal risk. Before the award, the Prize chairperson addressed the two honoured guests and an illustrious audience.

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.

A prophet-provacateur faithful to French traditions of lucidity, sensuality, and alienation, Houellebecq believes we are all doomed. The Map and the Territory continues his great project of exposing the limits of individualism.

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

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?

The Islamist win in Egypt confirms a trend. Religious absolutism is now out of the equation: people are empowered to determine their political leaders and their institutions.

The daring designer plunge, the sledgehammer swing and a crawfish culinary classic are all ways to get noticed, swamplands-style

Do the supposedly civilised values of human rights and responsible citizenry become exclusionary, used to divide rather than unite? Is religion a partner of liberty? On the day the British parliament considers a bill proposing the banning of headscarves in public places, Robin Llewellyn reviews Jonathan Sacks' ‘The Great Partnership: God, Science, and the Search for Meaning’

The Occupy Movement, far from having no programme, has revolutionized our sense of self. The Citizen of the World adopts a panoramic view of society and takes the interests of others all over the world to be as important as her or his self interest.

If the heart of the crisis lies in the politics – including in the politics of the economic policy choices being made – then solutions may lie, not in yet more EU institutional changes and the creation of an austerity union, but in the practice and the dynamism of democratic European politics. But a certain tradition of creating a theoretically more democratic Europe for the people even if they do not seem to want it has deep roots in the EU elites. So far, this hasn't worked.

The psychic charge given to a gift from deepest Looziana ultimately proves to be a prudent investment

Why is Britain the country of commonsense, rather than high theory? A brief history of the ideology of anti-intellectualism and conservatism in the UK.

Ancient wisdoms and future challenges come together after the elections in Egypt: the Islamic parties will not have things all their way

The editor of our Networked Society debate concludes the project by sharing his reflections on the last tumultuous year of global networked protest, making way for a new debate on the escalating Occupy Movement.

In which it is claimed that the practice of drawing can lead two thinkers centuries apart into a new symbiosis opening the way to political transformation. But what kind of transformation? Book review

Part One of our conclusion to the Networked Society debate: Goodbye, year of new movements: bring on 2012 and Occupy Everything.

Scotland's independence referendum will be held in Autumn 2014. Whatever the people decide, Scotland and the UK will never be the same again.

Part Three of our conclusion to the Networked Society debate: Goodbye, year of new movements: bring on 2012 and Occupy Everything.