The west’s financial crisis has exposed great failures of economic thinking as well as policy. This week, we launched “Uneconomics”. It challenges the dominance of orthodox economists. They have taken over the thinking and language of both policy-making and media coverage of business and finance.
What does a mother say when her son's just been convicted of 15 racist murders? (This is not a comfortable read.)
One year on from the January 25 protests in Tahrir Square, the experiences of Egyptian women are strained and contradictory. Zainab Magdy tells of the experience of ‘performing’ in a world of virginity tests, attacks on women and the furore over Aliaa ElMahdy’s naked photograph. Hania Sholkamy hig
At its first editorial meeting of the year, openDemocracy decided to strike. We joined the global blackout. Joichi Ito and Ethan Zuckerman explain what we opposed. The next day our editor, Rosemary Bechler, attends the Oxford launch of the FreeSpeechDebate where guest speaker Jimmy Wales pronounce
Does the mindset of market fundamentalism get its philosophical imprimatur from Descartes' calculating cogito? In which case perhaps a more generous world needs to look to Spinoza, the first great critic of Cartesian individualism. The contrast hovers over an elegant engagement with John Berger's
I hope you enjoyed the festive period. For the past two weeks openDemocracy has been looking back at the best of 2011 with sections preparing front pages of their own. The quality reflects the quite extraordinary year it has been: from the Arab Spring to the London riots; from the prospect of war
Russia’s unscheduled civil re-awakening dominated openDemocracy front pages this week. Speaking at oDRussia’s timely roundtable (video), prominent journalist Mikhail Fishman declared that Moscow has turned resolutely against the regime.
As Sudan breaks into North and South, is it possible wonders Elfadil Ibrahim for national identities to embrace respectful pluralism? Read on for a summary of publishing highlights in openDemocracy this week...
The appalling fate of the most wonderful pre-industrial human and natural environment on earth, and the way its destruction is simply ignored, is truly shocking. In a classic openDemocracy essay, Hugh Brody takes us to the 50th anniversary of... do you know?
Umut Özkirimli begins the week warning Europeans that they can no longer rely on outmoded distinctions between 'good' and 'bad' nationalism; Kirsty Hughes marvels at the UK’s influence in Europe vanishing without ‘any serious national debate’; and Paulina Tambakaki notices a curious convergence of
Have the Occupy movements we are covering around the western world gained ground following the concerted evictions of camps in the US? The resulting public outrage could benefit the movement, argues Todd Gitlin, who offers advice as to how the movement should adapt its strategy. Our Editor-in-Chie
As Europe grinds to a halt, the openDemocracy team is on various continents, attending conferences. Two of these, one looking forwards, one backwards, have made their home with us this week. As the Club de Madrid debates ‘Digital Technologies for 21st Century Democracy’ in New York, Beth Novak rem
