The internationally renowned democracy expert, Professor John Keane, joined a special Sydney Writers' Festival panel discussion on Thursday 17 May in the University of Sydney's Great Hall on the future of the Occupy movement. Listen to Audio div.episode h3 { display: none; }...
Read MoreEvery joke resembles a tiny revolution, George Orwell once wrote. He had a point. Even when they’re instantly forgotten, of little or no consequence or just plain silly, jokes momentarily disrupt the settled routines of our daily lives. The joker...
Read MorePirate Party campaign ‘ship’, Cologne, March 2008 Tobias Walter/flickr Is there life after conventional parliamentary politics? That’s the intriguing question on the lips of many German citizens this weekend as supporters of the Pirate Party assemble in the north German city of...
Read More[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 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 MorePublished 13 February 2012 | St. James Ethics Centre - IQ2 Oz, ABC Big IDEAS Why should we assume that democracy is the best of all political systems? Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in the Arab world...
Read MoreVoting in Wukan by Jordan Pouille James Madison famously remarked that a popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy. The present government of the People’s Republic of...
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