Democracy in action? A supporter signs a mural backing WikiLeaks leaker Private Bradley Manning. Photo: Reuters POLITICS THE CONFIDENCE TRAP: A HISTORY OF DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS FROM WORLD WAR I TO THE PRESENT By David Runciman Princeton University Press, $52.95 With talk of democracy...
Read MoreVibrant democracies need sharp-angled and unceremonious characters like Lou Reed who can rail against imperiousness and conformity, writes John Keane. [caption id="attachment_9170" align="alignnone" width="741"] PHOTO: Lou Reed embodied detached cool and passionate anger. (Tracey Nearmy: AAP)[/caption] It's said often that democracy requires...
Read MoreThe following words on the subject of secrets and politics were spoken at a recent Sydney public symposium, organised by my colleague Benedetta Brevini, Beyond Wikileaks (8th October 2013). There are three sensitive secrets I’d like to reveal about the topical subject of...
Read MoreBy Giovanni Navarria, University of Sydney and John Keane While Australians face the possibility of the first-ever Senate by-election, as well as stormy sittings of a new parliament wrangling over the pro and cons of scrapping a carbon tax, 16,000 kilometres away,...
Read MoreThe following words on the subject of secrets and politics were spoken at a recent Sydney public symposium, organised by my colleague Benedetta Brevini, Beyond Wikileaks (8th October 2013). There are three sensitive secrets I’d like to reveal about the topical...
Read MorePerhaps the only bright democratic light in this dark crisis surrounding Syria is the unexpected growth of a cross-border, large-scale and ultimately global denunciation of the follies and horror of war, writes John Keane. Does democracy have anything to do with...
Read More‘No bourgeois, no democracy’ is the racy formulation penned half a century ago by the American historian Barrington Moore Jr. It’s a well-known political maxim, one that’s often used in support of the view that to be middle class is...
Read More‘No bourgeois, no democracy’ is the racy formulation penned half a century ago by the American historian Barrington Moore Jr. It’s a well-known political maxim, one that’s often used in support of the view that to be middle class is...
Read MoreIn the midst of a two-party dominated and heavily-scripted federal election campaign, I spoke with the widely-respected and independently-minded Senator Scott Ludlam (Greens, Western Australia) about his life-long interest in urban thinking and city life as a laboratory of new...
Read More[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="383"] PHOTO: Do cities hold the key to our democratic future? (By Florence Roca)[/caption] Senator Scott Ludlam has city life and urban thinking hard-wired into his political genes, and believes that cities are becoming political laboratories. John Keane...
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