In preparation for an upcoming event at the University of Sydney, I’ve been re-reading ex-diplomat Stefan Halper’s interpretation of contemporary Chinese politics. Like most books by outsiders on the subject of China, The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate The...
Read MoreIt was raw, convincing, a two-hour burst of unsmiling defiance, a croaky voice of the not-young, not-old generation to which I happily belong. I’d seen him perform live before. Several times, in fact. This moment was special. Last month it...
Read MoreA popular recent joke in China tells of two Communist Party members enjoying drinks in a fancy bar in downtown Shanghai. One says to the other: ‘I think I’ve lost touch with my comrades.’ The second asks: ‘Are...
Read More‘No bourgeois, no democracy’ is a formula made famous during the 1960s by the American scholar Barrington Moore Jr. It’s still frequently quoted in the academic literature. When explaining the connections between modern parliamentary democracy and market capitalism, some scholars, journalists...
Read MoreWhen future historians look back on the agreement forged in Brussels during the past several days and nights, they’ll surely be struck by its historical significance. The complex deal agreed by representatives of the EU member states involved more than...
Read MoreIf there was a machine capable of detecting reticence and hostility towards democracy there’s no doubt it would be working overtime in this European crisis. It would buzz and bleep in more than a few locations, some of them unexpected, including...
Read MoreShortly after touching down in Berlin last week, I contact a friend who says she’s on her way home to Athens, to vote in this weekend’s cliff-hanger election, the most desperate since the defeat of military dictatorship four decades ago....
Read MoreRethinking the history of the impact of representative democracy upon Indigenous peoples. Although the first Australian association of self-declared democrats was formed in Sydney only in 1848, the year of revolutions in Europe, the political tides flowing in their favour were...
Read MoreIn The Fixed Period, the 19th-century English writer Anthony Trollope describes a university college where the professors are compulsorily retired at 67, given a year to contemplate the world, then peacefully extinguished from the ways of the world with a...
Read MoreFrom Tunis to Oakland, Madrid to Athens and Sydney, an estimated 900 major occupations of public places by citizens took place around the world during the past 12 months. The following notes probe their political significance. With apologies to Marx...
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