Mali, and remote-control war
The Afghan model of future war based on armed-drones and special-forces is being refined in Mali. But the western states there risk provoking the reaction that defeated them in Afghanistan and Iraq.The...
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And the winner is... Reflections on post-electoral politics in Italy
With no clear winner emerging out of the election, a new era of uncertainty opens for Italian politics. How can the country get out of the post-electoral impasse?What remains of an electoral poster on...
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So what keeps Iran’s Supreme Leader awake at night?
The biggest threat to the survival of the Islamic Republic might not come from sanctions imposed by the west, but from growing divisions that are disintegrating the regime from the inside.Iranians...
View ArticleMid-Staffs: we need to pay more tax for our health service in England
We need to consider both the amount we pay for the NHS and also what we mean by the "culture" problem - the culture in question is commercial culture. Why then are we reorganising the whole NHS on...
View ArticleHow the Commons can break the silence over Halabja
The British Parliament is set to debate the political recognition of Saddam Hussein's campaign against the Kurds as genocide. With the threat of chemical weapons in Syria a declared 'red line', the...
View ArticleShaping the post 2015 development agenda - let's forget the Millennium...
Critics fear that the renewed UN Millennium Development Goals starting in 2015 will fail to include democracy and human rights. But maybe the UN Declaration on Human Rights is still useful.Next week...
View ArticleLast call for Egypt's activists?
What Egypt’s revolutionary activists lack is a coherent organisational base. Only the Muslim Brotherhood manages to reach out to the electorate and by doing so easily grabs the levers of power.Egypt is...
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Suffer the little children…
A new Russian law banning US adoptions has been roundly criticised at home and abroad; a toddler’s unexplained death has been held up as justification. For Daniil Kotsyubinsky, it is all a case of...
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Fair Trade and 'The Economist's Critique'
As Fairtrade Fortnight commences it is important to demystify the economic arguments surrounding fair trade. Is it the case that promoting social justice in the supply chain can serve to undermine the...
View ArticleTunisia: a country in flux
The hopes of peaceful transition to democracy in Tunisia have been dented by the murder of a leading secularist figure. The event poses urgent questions of the country's new political elite, says...
View ArticleKenya, between hope and fear
The violent aftermath of Kenya's previous election is present in everyone's minds as Kenyans elect a successor to Mwai Kibaki. But the past five years have brought many other issues to the fore, says...
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Holocaust – is that wallpaper paste?
Last year two student sisters appearing on a Russian TV quiz show gained instant notoriety when asked to define the word ‘Holocaust’. A trip to Auschwitz with journalist Mumin Shakirov dispelled their...
View ArticleGender violence in the media: elusive reality
The death of Reeva Steenkamp has highlighted the problematic way in which the media treat the issue of domestic violence. We need a better way to transmit and therefore tackle the reality – how...
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The left needs to start again: interview with Ken Loach
Loach's new film, Spirit of '45, is an impassioned account of the unity that built the post-war welfare state, contrasted with the dismantling we are witnessing today. Oliver Huitson talks to him about...
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#keepODopen: notes from the Twitter campaign trail
Our Associate Editor gives a behind-the-scenes look at the #keepODopen campaign. How does a small organisation such as openDemocracy develop an effective social media strategy?As you know, we need to...
View ArticleRequiem for a court
What is more important: to dispense justice or to achieve some kind of peace? The court in The Hague wrote the history of the Yugoslav dissolution by politically motivated parcelling of responsibility...
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How to build a foreign policy for introvert Europe?
The euro crisis has resulted in an even more introvert Europe, and everything has yet to be done to build a European foreign policy. So where should we start?German foreign and defence ministers meet...
View ArticleThe BBC yet again presents a right wing think-tank’s work as objective research
It looks like a public body. It sounds like a public body. But Scotland's Commission on School Reform is the child of a privately-funded right wing think-tank. Why does the BBC play along?The BBC often...
View ArticleOur voices: Reconciliation and justice
Film: In this series of short films Burundian women look at key issues in the wake of the civil war, which ended in 2005. More than 1 million Burundians were internally displaced or forced to flee the...
View ArticleThe Iranian key to the Syrian crisis
The deep implications of Iran's strategic and ideological investment in the Assad regime forces international efforts for a 'grand bargain' to face the stark and unpalatable reality of political...
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