“This time it’s different,” promised the European Parliament in an awareness campaign ahead of the May 2014 elections. And, judging by the headlines, it certainly has been different. Many in the media…
It seems an anomaly that among the 15 autonomous, specialised agencies within the United Nations – such as the FAO, WMO, WHO, or UNESCO – there is no dedicated environmental organisation. This secondary…
Is it possible to opine about “the state of democracy in Asia”? Although some studies credibly do so, such a task seems challenging to say the least. This is due to the region’s proverbial diversity. And…
The international community has been impotent since Russia responded to the November 2013 Ukraine crisis with force, culminating in annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea this month. The G7’s…
Tunisia has been hailed as a lone success story among the Arab Spring nations. A relatively peaceful transition with a recent agreement on a new constitution has enabled the country to avoid the bloodshed…
The Conversation is running a series, Class in Australia, to identify, illuminate and debate its many manifestations. Here, Peter Whiteford investigates what has happened to income and wealth inequality…
The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) report into human rights abuses in North Korea, released on Monday by panel chairman Michael Kirby, highlights the impact of the government’s extreme…
The Labour Party has started bringing forward policies for 2015, and not a moment too soon. The time for policy reviews, which really were more like a synopsis of contemporary social theory than reviews…
As a public personality, our new prime minister is an involuntary paradox. On the one hand, Tony Abbott is one of the most discussed people in Australia. On the other, much of the discussion is so ill-informed…
It’s an exquisitely portentous cliché, the one that is always trotted out at each Australian election: this is the most important election in a generation, or since World War Two, or the advent of television…
The following draft reflection on the subject of banks and democracy has been prepared for presentation at a forthcoming OECD meeting in Paris, in late-May 2013. The text is obviously much too long for…
It is now two and a half years since the Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Both the people and the ecosystem of the Gulf were changed by this massive spill; how well…
Funding cuts announced to Queensland Aboriginal communities last month will of course affect the budgets of Aboriginal Shire Councils. But their impact will be felt much more further afield than just within…
Energy production must shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources within four decades to avoid the most damaging consequences of climate change, a government report has found. The Climate Commission’s…
Dear reader, don’t let yourselves be fooled: whatever political charlatans, cynics or melancholics say to the contrary, democracy as we know it is turning green. There’s never been a period in the history…
Which is the greater deprivation for an animal: to live a good-quality life abbreviated at less than its natural term by painless slaughter for meat, or to never live at all? How much of an animal’s life…
The skepticism of contemporary China’s multilayered and painful efforts to achieve legal and political reform makes many wonder if democracy can really grow in the Chinese soil. This is such a haunting…
Professor of Comparative Political Science and Democracy Research at the Humboldt University Berlin; Associate of the Sydney Democracy Network, University of Sydney; Director of Research Unit Democracy: Structures, Performance, Challenges, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.