[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="237"] Bob Brown at the University of Newcastle, 1986 University of Newcastle Cultural Collections/Flickr[/caption] Archaeologists tell us that Sumerian kings had their face slapped once a year by a priest to remind them of the importance of humility....
Read More[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="237"] Günter Grass, at the New York Public Library, June 2007 Flickr[/caption] Günter Grass has dared say publicly in a poem what needed saying: the present Netanyahu government of Israel is a potential danger to its own people,...
Read MoreWednesday 4th April 2012: a funny old day, though my field notes record that it began well. An early morning message arrives from Athens, from Periklis Douvitsas. He’s the editor of the publishing house looking after Why Democracy. It’s shortly to...
Read More“I’m feeling a little delicate”, said Aung San Suu Kyi politely to the mainly foreign press pack, gathered like beginner pupils at her feet. She added, with a gentle smile, that “any tough questions and I shall faint straightaway”. The...
Read MoreWhile still on the subject of H.L. Mencken, it’s worth remembering one of his deliciously light-hearted jibes at parliamentary democracy. In the course of warning of the dangers of popular ignorance, especially in a 1930s world bristling with economic and...
Read MoreDisquiet and disaffection, like a fast-moving swarm of sticky locusts, are spreading through the drought fields of democracy. Look around, beyond the borders in which you’re living. Public disenchantment with politicians and official “politics” is on the rise everywhere, stirred...
Read MoreVáclav Havel has died aged 75. A poet and playwright, a political writer, dissident and a politician, Havel was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia, and the first President of the Czech Republic founded in 1993. The Conversation spoke with...
Read More[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="668"] The first free elections borne from the Arab Spring were held in Tunisia. Over 90% of registered adults voted. EPA/Zacarias Garcia[/caption] It has been a tumultuous week in the life and times of democracy in the Mediterranean....
Read MoreMEDIA & DEMOCRACY: On the final day of The Conversation’s series on how the media influences the way our representatives develop policy, John Keane examines how the relationships between politicians, journalists, lobbyists and the PR sector undermine democracy. [caption id="" align="aligncenter"...
Read More[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="668"] Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper empire is reeling under the phone hacking scandal. AAP[/caption] Schadenfreude is the tough-sounding word that wins my vote for describing accurately how millions of people around the world are feeling about Rupert Murdoch’s...
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