It’s a plain truth that democracies everywhere are witnessing the resurgence of religious bigotry. There are moments when it feels even as if something like a new global religious war has begun, on several fronts. Ignorant media hype, foul abuse...
Read MoreThe following remarks on the future of elections sketch the ambitious scope of an exciting Sydney/Berlin research project launched last week at the the University of Sydney We live in times shaped by the conviction that periodic ‘free and fair’ elections...
Read MoreTwo things are especially striking about the massive movement of refugees into Europe: running for their lives from the fear and famine, rape and killing of the wider region, people seeking sanctuary are being greeted by the stinginess of states...
Read MoreEditor’s note: On the occasion of Independence Day, we felt it appropriate to reprint, from our Australian edition, the remarks of University of Sydney political thinker and writer John Keane on why Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America – 180...
Read MoreThe Law of the European Union Universiteit Leiden Last week’s visit to Berlin, peppered by many intensely interesting conversations, convinced me of one thing: Europe is beginning to resemble a political madhouse. Jan Zielonka’s brief but brilliant Is the EU Doomed? offers...
Read MoreSince the last time we were together inside his prison lodgings at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, a few things have changed. Julian Assange has grown a beard, looks more pallid and pauses when I ask after his general health. His legal team are...
Read More‘Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent’, wrote the young Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus (1921). The words are now famous, but in matters of politics the elegant last-sentence formula of his key early work must be doubted,...
Read More[caption id="attachment_9806" align="alignnone" width="800"] Acampada, Barcelona, 21/05/1011[/caption] The following notes on the future of democratic representation were inspired by Simon Tormey’s The end of representative politics (2015), launched at a Gleebooks event organised by the Sydney Democracy Network (SDN), May 15th...
Read MoreThe following remarks on a famous work by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859) were presented as a lecture to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Scholars Program at the University of Sydney, 24th April, 2015. The young aristocrat Alexis...
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On the eve of the collapse of the Soviet empire, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama surfed to fame after pronouncing the global victory of the idea of American-style ‘liberal democracy’. Nearly three decades later, things look grim for his...
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