What are universities for, if they are to be other than “shopping-malls of the mind”? A 1998 lecture by Fred Halliday offers an answer, says Anne Corbett.
Spain’s supreme court has refused to register a new Basque political party pledged to non-violence, because of its suspected links with the banned terrorist group ETA. But the decision is more complex than it appears, says Guy Hedgecoe.
The changing dynamics of the Libyan conflict highlight the contradictions of "humanitarian intervention" when pressed to serve the western way of war, says Martin Shaw.
The opening of the Arctic to ship-passage will transform the region’s political as well as environmental landscape, says Øyvind Paasche.
The question of religion’s place in modern secular societies is intellectually contested and politically divisive. Here, the scholar Tariq Modood argues that European experience and institutional development can favour an accommodative model that respects religion yet goes beyond both toleration a
Daniel Goldhagen’s book “Worse Than War” includes British colonial rule in Kenya in the 1950s among its case-studies of “elimination”. A close reading of the demographic evidence reveals the falsity of the argument, says David Elstein.(This article was first published on 4 March 2010)
Half-Chechen, one-time aide to Khodorkovsky, sometime novelist and current-day political technician, Vladislav Surkov’s life story lacks anything but colour. Yet the adjectives most usually attributed to his political figure are “grey” and “shadowy”. Richard Sakwa reviews a collection of speeches
Optimistic reports of the Kremlin embracing liberal party politics have proven highly exaggerated. Such an agenda lacks the full support of the ruling elites, and as such is doomed to failure, explains Andrei Kolesnikov.
The evolution of new forms of governance in rural China is an important if often hidden part of the country’s major transition, says Kerry Brown.
The emergent movements around the politics of food are a vital component of debates on the planet’s future, says Geoff Andrews.
The prospect of Turkish membership of the European Union looks more remote than ever. But neither Europe’s infirmity nor Turkey’s widening horizons need be the end of the story. A revived relationship based on mutual benefit remains possible, says Nora Fisher Onar.
