Politics Archives - Page 60 of 143

Feature

Vladimir Putin’s Mirror Image

Alexei Navalny and his populist political representation

February 8, 2019 • by Konstantin Koryagin

In March 2017 the largest anti-corruption rallies in the last five years were held in Russia. What was most surprising about these rallies was the age of the participants: many of those protesting were students and pupils, who took to the streets with a sense of excitement in their eyes. ...

Feature

A Place of Grief and Revolution

A Review of Gina Apostol’s Filipino novel, Insurrecto

February 7, 2019 • by Jen Mediano

When you crack open Gina Apostol’s Insurrecto, there’s an old-timey cast of characters and a listing of parts and chapters set off by florid fonts and curlicues. The reader thinks this will serve to orient her. If I use this key, you think, I will know who the main and minor ...

Democracy

Authoritarian Parasitism in Turkey and Beyond

Erdogan and the rise of strongman politics

February 6, 2019 • by Utku Balaban

What makes this phenomenon perplexing is the fact that these governments come into power in countries that are anything but similar. For instance, the United States has a long-lasting political system backed by its strong institutions and semi-holy texts such as its Constitution. Hungary reframed its entire political regime after ...

Authoritarian Parasitism in Turkey and Beyond

Feature

Political Storytelling and the State of the Union

An examination of the role and limits of storytelling in American political life

February 5, 2019 • by Erin A. Dolgoy, Kimberly Hurd Hale and Bruce Peabody

With the government shutdown at an end, at least for the next few weeks, President Trump and Speaker Pelosi quickly agreed to hold the State of the Union on Tuesday, Feb. 5. Of course, some commentators have openly wondered how much the address still matters, especially in an age of constantly shifting news ...

Political Storytelling and the State of the Union

Blue Monday

Mitch McConnell and the “For the People Act of 2019”

Thoughts on power grabbing and democracy

February 4, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

This is the Democrat plan to restore democracy? A brand new week of paid vacation for every federal employee who’d like to hover around while you cast your ballot? A Washington-based, tax-subsidized clearinghouse for political campaign funding? A power grab. It’s smelling more and more like exactly what it is. Thus ...

Mitch McConnell and the “For the People Act of 2019”

Feature

Brexit, Dark Money and Big Data

An investigation into the financing of Brexit

February 3, 2019 • by Adam Ramsay

An investigation by openDemocracy into the financing of the Brexit campaign in 2016 has raised far-reaching questions about connections between neoliberal elites, the tech industry and the private intelligence sector. Adam Ramsay, one of the journalists involved, summarizes a story vital to understanding how Britain has ended up where it ...

Democracy

On Media Mess and Its Alternatives

Islands of Totalitarianism and Democracy continued

February 1, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

When people meet in their differences, as equals, develop a capacity to meet and talk in the presence of each other, and develop a capacity to act together in concert, they constitute political power, an island of democracy. For Hannah Arendt, in fact, this is political power in contrast to ...

Blue Monday

To Hell With Maduro and With Trump

Thoughts on Socialism, Venezuela, and Freedom

January 28, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The Venezuelan system has been in crisis for some time. This crisis, like all crises, is no doubt overdetermined. It has global, regional, and domestic dimensions. And its primary victims are the ordinary people of Venezuela. If you have any doubts, I recommend a look at Amnesty International’s 2018 report, ...

Media

The Power of Platforms

How biopolitical companies threaten democracy

January 25, 2019 • by Janosik Herder

The 2010s will likely be remembered as the decade of the rise of platforms. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber -- all of these companies have become more than just billion-dollar businesses. Over the last ten years they have started to play an essential role in the everyday life of most ...

Feature

From Tax Laws to Military Benefits

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Early Battles Against Sex Discrimination

January 23, 2019 • by Tanya L. Roth

In late December, Focus Features released On the Basis of Sex, a biopic about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Starring Felicity Jones, On the Basis of Sex highlights Ginsburg’s journey through law school, her teaching career, and her family relationships, particularly with her husband, Martin, and her daughter, Jane. The film shows ...

Feature

A Murder in Gdańsk

The assassination of Mayor Paweł Adamowicz

January 22, 2019 • by Sławomir Sierakowski

The assassination of Gdańsk Mayor Paweł Adamowicz at a fundraising event for Poland's most beloved charity culminates years of fear-mongering about the country's opposition and judiciary by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. And now the PiS has chosen the wrong scapegoat for Adamowicz's murder. The murder of Gdańsk Mayor ...

Blue Monday

Thoughts on Martin Luther King, Jr., Birmingham, and Fractious Unity

Lessons from the civil rights movement for today’s political debates

January 21, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

“I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues.” - Duke Ellington Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a classic of American political thought and of American literature more generally. I’ve taught it countless times in my almost four decades of teaching political ...