Democracy Archives - Page 33 of 55

Democracy

Democracy “As If“

August 17, 2020 • by Dagmar Kusá

More than a century ago, Hans Vaihinger formulated his philosophy “as if” to describe our willing choice to live in a world of logical contradictions. As we cannot reach our ideals (e.g. a truly just society), we produce imperfect fictional explanations full of deliberate errors to fill in logical gaps ...

Democracy

Pandemic Politics

Reflections on the first appearance of the Biden – Harris team

August 16, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

“Kamala is killing it!” “The two speeches, of Biden and Harris, affectively expressed compassion and warmth, as they made sharp political points.” These were my Facebook responses to the coming out of the Biden – Harris team. Although I generally don’t use Facebook to express such judgments, I couldn’t constrain myself, struck as ...

Democracy

Belarusian Plea to the Global Community

August 16, 2020 • by United Massmedia

North America

Public Seminar Books Presents: A Conversation with Eric Alterman

Hosted by co-executive editor Claire Potter, the topic is politics and Alterman’s new book, “Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie -And Why Trump is Worse” (Basic Books, 2020)

August 13, 2020 • by Claire Potter

If there’s one thing we know about Donald Trump, it’s that he lies. But he’s by no means the first president to do so. In Lying in State, Eric Alterman asks how we ended up with such a pathologically dishonest commander in chief, showing that, from early on, the United States ...

Public Seminar Books Presents: A Conversation with Eric Alterman

Democracy

From Mafia State to ”Parish” Republic

August 5, 2020 • by Michal Vašečka

Slovakia is a rather unique case within post-1989 Central Europe as far as democratic transition is concerned. The lack of a tradition of statehood is the most evident difference between Slovaks and the other nations of Central Europe. It is necessary to keep this fact in mind when examining the ...

Democracy

We’re All in the Same Boat: A Democracy Seminar Update

August 3, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

As I wrote over two years ago, when our current group first began to take shape, this is the second iteration of the Democracy Seminar. The first was an exchange between critical democrats in the United States and Central Europe in the late nineteen eighties and early nineties. The contrast ...

We’re All in the Same Boat: A Democracy Seminar Update

Europe & Central Asia

A Year of Boris Johnson

Only a handful of people would be mad enough to covet being prime minister at this particular point in British history, and one of them now inhabits Downing Street

July 27, 2020 • by Simon Jones

Thursday saw the United Kingdom pass an important milestone: one year of life under the leadership of Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson. What was supposed to be a fascinating year of unpredictable political events has been rendered utterly dystopian through the COVID-19 crisis. Still, it’s worth looking back on what ...

North America

Mike Pompeo’s Originalist Foreign Policy

The Commission’s report gives ammunition to partisans who aim to weaken core constitutional protections within the United States

July 23, 2020 • by Duncan Hosie

This justification is a pretext. While pretending to strengthen protection for human rights abroad, the Commission’s report gives ammunition to partisans who aim to weaken core constitutional protections within the United States. Pompeo and the Commission’s report embrace an “originalist” vision of America’s founding. Originalism is a doctrine in constitutional law ...

Mike Pompeo’s Originalist Foreign Policy

Democracy

Securing the November U.S. Election

The urgent task for all democrats

July 21, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

“To support the Ins when things are going well; to support the Outs when they seem to be going badly, this, in spite of all that has been said about tweedledum and tweedledee, is the essence of popular government. Even the most intelligent large public of which we have any ...

Democracy

Rebirth of a Nation?

There is a dangerous method to Trump’s racist madness

July 20, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Donald Trump is doubling down on his racism and xenophobia. This is widely acknowledged, and condemned, by many commentators. It is viewed, correctly in my judgment, as both a resort to the rhetoric with which Trump is most comfortable, racist and xenophobe that he is, and as a campaign strategy. ...

Democracy

Hong Kong: Pandemic, Protests, and Protecting “National” Security

July 20, 2020 • by Mark Frazier

The annual June 4 candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to commemorate those who died in the 1989 suppression of peaceful protests in China was canceled this year, although a few thousand citizens jumped the fences at Victoria Park to hold informal ceremonies. For the first time in three decades, the ...

Hong Kong: Pandemic, Protests, and Protecting “National” Security

Democracy

Should Governments Have Access to Our Data?

Privacy and democracy in the age of pandemics

July 20, 2020 • by Jo Guldi and Macabe Keliher

Americans are scared about encroachments on their data privacy, and rightly so. Prior to 9/11, most advocated limiting the government’s ability to gather and access data in the name of civil liberties. Faced with the threat of terror, however, citizens resigned themselves to encroachments on privacy made in the name ...