A new word is needed to describe these events of recent months. They should be called ‘refolutions’, radical refusals of the old choice between reform and revolution – remarkably sensitive to the grave dangers and high costs of using violent...
Read MoreGreat revolutionary convulsions typically trigger long-lasting reflections on their causes and consequences. The European tradition of political thinking harbours many well-known examples, including Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Harold Laski’s Reflections on the Revolution of Our...
Read MoreDuring the last quarter of the eighteenth century, in various parts of the Atlantic region, the meaning of citizenship was profoundly transformed by the advent of representative democracy. Central to its definition and functioning was the principle that citizens in...
Read MoreTranslated by Philipp Schwertmann for the 2004 Yearbook of the University of Goettingen "Wirtschaft und Zivilgesellschaft" • Zivilgesellschaftlicher Purismus Welche Kräfte treiben heute die Globalisierung der Zivilgesellschaft voran? Viele Aktivisten und einige ihrer intellektuellen Unterstützer lassen keine Zweifel an der richtigen Antwort:...
Read More1. The Centrality of Markets During the modernization of the concept of civil society that took place in the Atlantic region between the years 1776 and 1848, every commentator on commodity production and exchange thought of markets as an organizing principle...
Read MoreIn the beginning there was the grand spectacle of a worldwide satellite television broadcast, featuring Maria Callas, Pablo Picasso and the Beatles. Then came fax machines, photocopiers, video recorders and personal computers. Now there are electronic books, scanners and smart...
Read MoreThe Egyptian revolution came not from the intellectual elite or opposition parties, but via Facebook and the Twitterverse, from the young men and women of Egypt fed up with autocratic, geriatric rule. Nor are they interested in a theocracy. Does...
Read MoreGlobal Civil Society Civil Society: Old Images New Visions The Media & Democracy Democracy & Civil Society Public Life & Late Capitalism Civil Society and the State Civil Society: Berlin Perspectives ...
Read MoreThere is no Khomeini and more than that I would say that there's been a learning process in the region; that revolutions can devour their own children. There is an awareness that the main strategy is to set up checks...
Read MoreFrom Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius, and Mary Kaldor (eds.), Global Civil Society 2001, Oxford University Press. Chapter 2, pp. 23-47 This chapter is available for download in PDF format To read more about John Keane's Global Civil Society (2002), including translations and chapter...
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