As a political instrument of power projection and status, nuclear weapons carry a peculiarly masculine symbolism. In the 1980s, Greenham women were at the forefront of challenging masculine ideologies of defence and security. We need to seize the initiative and again become the agents of security
Congratulations to openDemocracy author Clare Sambrook who has been named winner of the Paul Foot Award 2010 for her reports on the UK's shameful detention of asylum seekers' children.
What we see in global civil society depends on what value lens we use to define it. The trend towards networked organisation may have emancipatory effects, but may also obscure inequalities and clashing values
Encounters with Sudanese in Abyei underline the urgent need for referendum preparation and the scope of tensions on the ground, given the failure of political processes so far
" We’re not interested in making war safe for women… There are many substitutes for oil, but I can't think of a single substitute for a peace woman." Cora Weiss
A chilling account of brave journalists in Lukashenka’s Belarus, so many of whom die in unexplained circumstances. Olga Birukova hopes that Western PR gurus and journalists will not be taken in by official statements or the KGB-controlled picture of society in Belarus.
In Stalin’s time there were nearly a hundred GULag camps in Ivdel. Today, the maximum security penal colony FBU-IK 56 survives in their place. Ekaterina Lushnikova travelled there to speak to the inmates — some of Russia’s most hardened criminals.
The popular rejection of Nicolas Sarkozy’s abrupt changes to France’s pension system is rooted in the institutional and ethical flaws that underlie the reform, says Patrice de Beer.
Immigration policy may be nationally determined but the experience of settlement and integration is a uniquely local experience. So what is the role of localism in ensuring the benefits of migration are realised?
Unless the barriers to integration are reduced in the UK, in another twenty years a new wave of migrants will be accused of having failed to integrate
A new book by Dan Hind provides a welcome set of proposals to democratise public debate through a system of citizen-led editorial commissioning, but his focus on the mass media ignores the potential of other more democratic channels of communication.
On October 17th thousands of Congolese women, led by Olive Lembe Kabila marched to end impunity for sexual violence against women. Rape survivors joined the march, many of them from their hospital beds, defying a culture that shames victims rather than perpetrators
