If we are to articulate a ‘politics of hope’ in contemporary Europe, then we must revisit such problematic concepts as ‘populism’, ‘democracy’ and ‘Europe’, formulating a new language that can register the fact that the coexistence of an antidemocratic Europe, and an anti-European exploitation of
Liberalism does not evolve and progress according to some internal process, but because of the historical challenges it has faced. Slavery, colonialism, anti-semitism have all been a part of this. How do religious fundamentalism, environment and immigration challenge Liberalism today? A conversati
Following the SNP's unexpected triumph, full or fiscal independence for Scotland are suddenly real possibilities. Salmond has five years to call a referendum, and the result is critical for the whole UK. Both the Conservatives and Labour will fight to protect the Union, but the centre-left has mor
On February 1st, a building owned by Glasgow University was occupied in protest against attempts to model the university on a business, in solidarity with the wider student movement against the rise in tuition fees and privatisation of higher education. Yesterday, the Free Hetherington celebrated
What is The Democracy Manifesto? A global conversation involving academics, civil society and social movement activists from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America, has set out a credo for our fast-moving times, followed by responses from four of the participants as they continue th
However ruthless monopoly forces may be in limiting freedoms, the Democracy Manifesto challenges us to consider if the unruly power of the market isn’t also a home of democratic freedom.
Nobody has raised real debates in national or supranational parliaments to discuss the excesses of the securitarian discourse. Quite the opposite: the left has adopted the security discourse wholesale as its own and entered into a kind of auction with the right.
Right-wing populist parties tend to be anti-multinational and anti-intellectual: they endorse nationalistic, nativist, and chauvinistic beliefs, embedded - explicitly or coded - in common sense appeals to a presupposed shared knowledge of ‘the people’.
The Europe that is dying is the one that remains hostage to its past. Another Europe is not only possible but is in fact fast becoming an urgent necessity. This would be a Europe of vitality, open to connections, that has let go of its civilisational conceits
