The uncritical understanding of what constitutes a ‘community’ and the failure to grasp what forms of citizen self-government are possible in current conditions is what betrays the intellectual laziness of the Big Society’s key thinkers.
US-funded Radio Liberty started broadcasting to the USSR in 1953. Now Russia’s new media law has led to the mass firing of the station’s journalists and the appointment of a new editor, Masha Gessen. But she’s unlikely to find many journalists prepared to work with her, thinks Anastasia Kirilenko
Though triggered by a combination of recent events, the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial history of the Kivus sets the stage on which they take shape. Understanding is not justification: beware the instrumentalisation of history by ideologues. Français.
Mitt Romney's lackluster response to Hurricane Sandy has been a wasted opportunity, both for his campaign and, more importantly, for the hard-hit people on the East Coast.
"Many temples in South India held prayers for Obama’s victory in the 2008 elections. Haven’t heard of any this time round. Here is one from me, after four encounters on three continents."
Art and Property Now is an exhibition exploring John Berger’s life as storyteller, artist and critic. You can see it at the Inigo Rooms, Somerset House, London, until November 10, 2012. To celebrate Berger’s 86th birthday, we invited readers to a guided tour of some of the exhibition’s contents an
In the last two decades gendered and sexual ‘others’ have been ‘included’ in citizenship, as new sexual rights–bearing subjects. To what extent is this a Euro-American configuration within political liberalism? How do colonial and orientalist ideas about democracy follow from this restricted notio
Edmund Burke’s speeches on India illustrate the emergence of the orientalised political subject. Traces of this in the present can be seen through the relationship between British multiculturalism and the undocumented migrant.
Some say that Aseem Trivedi, the satirical cartoonist imprisoned in India this September, set himself up to achieve very little by highlighting an already deep rooted problem. But Trivedi’s real victory may be to have uncovered how India’s antiquated sedition laws are silencing democratic dissent
It has been this year's most notable absentee: whatever happened to Latin America as a theme in the presidential campaign?
Hesitation as a means of coercion – that is Merkiavelli’s method. Only one fate is worse than being overwhelmed by German money and that is not being overwhelmed by German money. Power grounded in the economy has no need to invade and yet is ubiquitous.
The majority of Germans view the United States, the “land of unlimited opportunities”, with a lot of sympathy. But their perception of American politics is more problematic.
