openDemocracy

The U.S. Foreign-Policy Future: A Progressive-Realist Union?

Articles — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:42:00 -0400

During the George W Bush years, two great currents of thinking about United States foreign policy -- progressive and realist -- have shared a critique of a third -- neo-conservative. Both liberal internationalists and proponents of hard-nosed Realpolitik have rejected a US foreign policy that aims to achieve indefinite US global hegemony -- but from quite different perspectives. Indeed, most realists have been as contemptuous of the liberal-internationalist alternative as of neo-conservatism.

Recently, some thoughtful observers of foreign policy have proposed that progressives and realists move beyond a shared critique of neo-conservatism in the direction of a commonly-held philosophy. Robert… more

Democratic Failure: Festering Lilies Smell Worse Than Weeds

Articles — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

I have to endorse most of what John Dunn argues in his response to Anthony Barnett & Isabel Hilton's article "Democracy and openDemocracy." Barnett & Hilton express a set of noble aspirations about democracy and its spread in the world with which I am wholly in agreement. I honour their intent. And indeed, it is the duty of everyone to work towards the kind of world they describe: one of an "open-minded, democratic citizenship" capable of "empowering the powerless and checking the powerful."

We shall do so much more effectively, however, if we do not suffer from too many illusions… more

An Islamic Republic? Yes or No

Articles — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 00:00:00 -0400

The bearded thug clenched a heavy wooden stick, occasionally waving it in the air as he surveyed a small group of protesters. It was 2003 and the assembled crowd -- a mix of university students, middle-class professionals, and disaffected, unemployed young men -- had gathered to commemorate the fourth anniversary of Iran's 1999 student protests, the most dramatic eruption of open dissent in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The student revolt of summer 1999, which began with protests over the closure of a reformist daily and ended in six days of pitched street-battles between a cocktail of Iranian… more