Turkey: what lies behind the nationwide protests ?
The nationwide demonstrations were spontaneous, universal and beyond distinct class characteristics. What we have witnessed can be described as the self-protection of society against a particular form...
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Edmund Burke: an unspoken villainy
Burke has been much discussed recently, on both left and right, yet beneath the verbosity and pomp is a host of highly unsavoury views. An "out and out vulgar bourgeois" is, if anything, too kind.Not...
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Macmansions, cellars and garrets: Surveying the new Ireland
Roy Foster investigates the public response to Ireland’s harsh, post-Celtic tiger existence, and finds more verve and resonance in the nation’s proud cultural life than in protest or political...
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Governments and ‘soft power’ in international affairs: Britain and the...
A look back ahead of the World Athletic Championships 2013, hosted by Moscow, to that of the 1980 Moscow Olympics when Britain tried and failed to boycott the competition. Why and how did we fail to...
View ArticleCity bypassed: the casualties of Mumbai's urban renewal
A short film exploring Mumbai's urban renewal as seen from Byculla, a multicultural inner-city neighbourhood symbolically and physically bypassed by road infastructure projects in Mumbai's race for...
View ArticleThe veil of secrecy: abuse in the Taiwanese military
This month has seen up to 250,000 Taiwanese protesters demand greater military transparency. Pressure on the Taiwanese government to investigate the problem of abuse within the military is reaching a...
View ArticleBearing witness to an international community
The author who has been involved in UN electoral missions all over the world, met up with a group of colleagues in New York who worked with him in Central America. He looks back on the work of twenty...
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Is China a challenge to the existing international order?
What does a rising China mean to the world? While some countries take China as a salient threat, others regard it as their role model for development and governance. Jiangnan Zhu responds to Xiaoyu...
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It begins and ends with power
The author acknowledges his supporters, but he answers his critics. (See related articles). It is political leverage, not human rights, that make things happen. The wealthy and influential have it, the...
View ArticleCould Iran's Rouhani soon face the 'deep opposition' that Egypt's Morsi...
It seems that without the role that the deep-opposition’s pessimism of the intellect played, the shallow opposition’s optimism of the will could never have claimed victory.“Iran has a ‘deep state’...
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Lessons from Love Canal: toxic expertise and environmental justice
August 7 marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of Love Canal. Toxins were discovered in the area in 2011, and new residents have reported unusual health problems. How can we prevent history repeating...
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Democratising capital at scale: cooperative enterprise and beyond
Faced with spiralling social, economic and environmental problems, many people are turning to economic democracy for solutions. But what shape should this democracy take? And how can it establish an...
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The age of endings
Our myths of progress are killing us. Where can we find a new set of stories to inspire the work of the future? Only through the creative imagination of writers, artists, storytellers and musicians....
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New faces, old ways: the dynamics of Turkish political leadership
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan belongs to a strong leadership tradition. Contextual and personal factors, from a lack of intra-party democracy to an insufficient system of checks and...
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Can the Bristol Pound bring us all together?
The recession has caused a great deal of strife across Europe, but what innovative new strategies should we be paying attention to that are reversing the economic effects of our current...
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Morocco-Spain relations: A new found love
The history of Spanish–Moroccan relations has been defined as one of mutual interests and guarded suspicion. However, Spain’s economic woes and Morocco’s diplomatic needs have led to a marriage of...
View ArticleThe history of British involvement in Bahrain's internal security
John Yates is only the most recent Briton to be given a public role in Bahrain's internal security. Since founding the Bahraini police force, the British influence is as strong as ever.Britain has...
View ArticlePolicing Bahrain: the long arm of the British
Just after the Arab Spring was brutally crushed in Bahrain, Britain's John Yates, the former Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner, became an advisor to the Ministry of Interior. What happened...
View ArticleChasing accountability; facing impunity
Bahrain's attempt to hold the state security services to account is channeled through campaigning, lobbying and of course the revolution itself. But what help are the official channels, and the law?The...
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Whose Police?
Do the police serve the public, or are they a force of elite control? openSecurity's series opens up this question to citizens, analysts and activists around the world: where does security come from?In...
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