Vilnius and Warsaw: Our Common Cause

Upon receipt of the Freedom Prize

Mrs. President, Mrs. Chair of the Parliament, Mr. Prime Minister,

I am moved and embarrassed by this honor bestowed by the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania on a Pole -- a Polish journalist and editor of Gazeta Wyborcza. I treat it as a sign of recognition for my friends and colleagues ...

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The Arabs Are Coming!

Imagine that on a United States election day the candidate for the presidency urges the white citizens of the country to get out and vote so as to outnumber the African American voters who are flocking to the polling station. It is almost a certainty that such a statement would ...

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Communicative Capitalism

It seems I got the title for my book The Spectacle of Disintegration (Verso 2013) from reading Jodi Dean. I read her book Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive (Polity Press, 2010) in manuscript. On re-reading it, I find this: “disintegrating spectacles allow for ever more ...
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The Israeli Disaster

There is no question that the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu will form the next Israeli government is a disaster for Israel and the world. Israel is a state that was formed in 1948 by the United Nations in response to worldwide public opinion. It is a state whose legitimacy was ...

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#Theory21c (part 2)

It is quite scandalous how much theory-talk still retails metaphors based on 19th century worldviews. As if what we can know about the world had not undergone several revolutions since. Hence if one were to look for a #Theory21c it would have to start with people who at least engage with ...

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Put out the FIRE (in GDP)!

No one can escape discussions about the state of "the economy." They inform political campaigns in the U.S., debt and austerity battles in the Eurozone, and development efforts in the poorest countries in the world. Our ideas about "the economy" -- how it works, what it involves, and how it ...

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Hope and its Discontents in Greece

The impressive victory of Syriza in the January 25th Greek elections was the direct result of increasing popular discontent with the Greek political elites and years of self-defeating austerity. The party, which symbolized a break with the past, ran on a platform based on hope, in contrast to ...

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