This week's window on the Middle East - October 1, 2012
Arab Awakening's columnists offer their weekly perspective on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Leading the week: Qatar’s Plan B for Syria: a wise choice? Qatar’s Plan B for Syria: a...
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Chez Morsi : palace petitioners and street entrepreneurs in post-Mubarak Egypt
As soon as Egypt’s first democratically-elected Islamist leader moved into the Presidential Palace, the surrounding streets became thronged by huge unruly crowds waving petitions addressed to the new...
View ArticleGlobal trade politics and the spectre of the public
This opening paper of the workshop, Creating publics, Creating democracies (see this week's theme) explores the elusive nature of ‘the public’ in relation to global governance and global civil...
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Assembly publics and the problem of hegemony in consensus decision-making
The point of looking at how consensus is actually established in practice is to see that despite the fundamental difference in logic, consensus and voting share a problem that may be more evident in...
View ArticleCreating publics, opening democracies: introducing the week
Calls for democracy echo around us, but what kind of democracy are people calling for? Some focus on the accountability of government to represent the people, while others are demanding new forms of...
View ArticleRwanda's connection to the M23 rebels must not be ignored
While many of the drivers of conflict in eastern DR Congo lie within its borders, an analysis that ignores the role of Rwanda in recent years is inadequate to the task of disassembling the cycles of...
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Universal benefits and the soul of Scottish democracy
Johann Lamont’s attack on benefit culture in Scotland marks a significant intervention in the nation’s political landscape. As Scottish Labour seek to differentiate themselves further from the SNP the...
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Georgian divisions: a dangerous poison?
Georgia goes to the polls today for tightly contested parliamentary elections. Despite an horrific prison abuse scandal on the eve of the vote, Mikheil Saakashvili believes his party has done enough...
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Throwing Tebbit a Googly: British Hindus and integration
Most British Hindus at Sunday's cricket match against England cheered for their 'mother country', not for the country in which they were born and raised. They failed the 'Tebbit Test', but does it...
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All aboard the Monti bandwagon!
The Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Monti, has recently hinted that he might stay for a second term at the head of his mostly technocratic and nonpartisan government, on the condition of not having to...
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Orchestrating democracy
If a lesson may be learned from the big live laboratory of democracy that is Italy, it might be the awareness that democracy requires failsafe mechanisms of early-warning to protect the enlightenment...
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In crisis-ridden Europe, euroscepticism is the new cultural trend
As the euro crisis becomes increasingly inextricable, European solidarity erodes. What if the new cultural common denominator between northern and southern Europe was contempt for the Union? "Where do...
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Geopolitics, energy and the Great African Lakes
The spectres of colonialism are haunting Eastern Africa. A border dispute between Malawi and Tanzania over the Lake Malawi/Nyasa have re-emerged after a British corporation was given the green light...
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Rigging elections, Ukrainian-style
On 28th October Ukrainians go to the polls to elect a new parliament, but it is already clear that the election will not be fought by fair means. Sergii Leshchenko outlines the various, and sometimes...
View ArticleThe ongoing attack on democracy in the Maldives
If western countries are unwilling to place any pressure against a regime of questionable legitimacy, allied with a former dictator and hard-line Islamists, while failing to provide any support for a...
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Same old stories? Trade unions and protest in Italy in 2011
The demand for politics over markets, a key message in the Occupy and Indignados movements, is also key here. A considerable drop in trust is clear: trust in all national institutions and political...
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Savile-gate: George Entwistle's first big test
The BBC’s decision to broadcast two tributes to Jimmy Savile while shelving a Newsnight investigation into allegations of sexual offences was a serious error of judgement. George Entwistle must now...
View ArticleTwo forgotten dimensions to the Syrian conflict
Two other fault lines, unrelated to the sectarian issue, need to be taken into account in order to understand the multi-dimensional Syrian conflict. There is a tendency among analysts to perceive the...
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The ‘New Tartan Tories’ of Scottish Public Life
Hyperbole and misinformation swamp the Scottish headlines as the independence referendum draws closer. How can radical thought overcome 'phantom Tories' and provide the framework to overcome the...
View ArticleSyria, Mali, Nigeria: war's paralysis
The conflict in Syria leaves western powers with no good choices, and their agony is intensified by Islamist advances in west Africa. The search for intelligent security rersponses goes on. The arrest...
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