During 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 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...
Read MoreBerlin 2001 It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Aung San Suu Kyi (1991) Despotism Many things shall be said for a long...
Read MoreNeglected for a generation, a troublesome political question is back : when should young people be able to vote for candidates in elections? Conservative peer Lord Lucas of Crudwell and Dingwall recently tabled a Private Members Bill in the Lords....
Read MoreDrawn from lectures originally delivered at the Institute for Management and Planning, Teheran, 5th May 2004 and (in revised form) at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), 14th July 2004. The Sovereign People? Among the most taken-for-granted propositions when discussing democracy...
Read MoreMention the two words social democracy and most people today think of business-friendly governments, welfare states in far-off Scandinavia and champagne socialists sporting pink shirts. Read full article in PDF format...
Read MorePublished in The Monthly, July 2010 Last month’s hung election in Britain confirms a basic rule of modern politics: whenever markets fail representative democracy falters. Not just in Britain but throughout the European Union the near-collapse of the credit and banking system is producing...
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