Articles

Amitav Acharya is the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance and Distinguished Professor at the School of International...

There exists a fine line that sociologists—and all social scientists—must tread as they try to knit together empirical, objective[1]...

Each year, The Economist publishes a Democracy Index. The 2022 edition listed 167 countries ranked on metrics of five dimensions: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture, and civil liberties. The US ranked 26th in the world. At the top of the list were Norway, New Zealand, Finland, and Sweden. At the bottom were North Korea, Myanmar, and Afghanistan. No real surprises there, but Taiwan (8), Uruguay

Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues to intensify as bombs increasingly hit city centres, destroying apartment buildings, theatres, and...

We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their...

Stephen Marche is a novelist, essayist and cultural commentator. He is the author of half a dozen books and has written opinion pieces...

The last few months, in particular the furore over Partygate,[1] have scarred the reputation of many of Britain’s most vital...

A front-runner in the fight for equality and justice, Professor Judith Butler is one of the most influential philosophers of the past century whose work has transformed the field of queer and feminist scholarship. By redefining what gender means and how it is displayed, Butler has broken down societal and cultural barriers, and, most importantly, allowed others inspired by their work to finally understand their identity and their place in the world. Both an activist and a sch

‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ is a phrase that has been raptured up into the popular English lexicon, cited, quoted, parodied, remixed, and dissolved into an ironic confirmation of the satire that produced it. It was the most iconic line from Network (1976), a now-classic film that told the dark tale of a fictional American network news anchor, Howard Beale (played by posthumous Academy Award-winner Peter Finch), whose blooming madness was exploite

Dr Alison Gilliland was Dublin’s 353rd Lord Mayor in 2021/2022. She is currently a Dublin City Councillor for the Labour Party, representing her local area of Artane / Whitehall and works as a facilitator, advisor, and researcher. Her community-oriented council work is underpinned by her previous experience as a training and equality officer for her trade union, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation. CJLPA : Dublin has had a mayor for nearly 800 years. How do you view you

Introduction The work of many 17th-18th century thinkers on politics and society continues to shape modern discourse, with notable contributions including Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651), John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750). The renown enjoyed by a small number of thinkers should not, however, divert us from more obscure but equally significant works from the period. The Anglo-Dutch crit

Iqan Shahidi is a PhD candidate in Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge. He completed his undergraduate studies in...

The Estonian flag is a blue-black-white tricolour. Or at least it should be. As a foreign correspondent in 1990, I was puzzled to see...

Does the law take its own course or is it made to take a certain course? Property cases are notorious for taking forever, but when the crime is murder, i.e., when the state is the prosecutor, and the facts of the case have been ascertained by the most reliable authorities, can justice elude the victim’s families for as long as two or three decades? Or is it made to do so? These questions arise from the way two cases—which should have been front page news but have simply disa

Oleg Tistol is one of Ukraine’s leading contemporary artists, who works with stereotypes associated with Ukrainian everyday life and...

Introduction Gamal Abdel Nasser savoured the moment: it is 26 July 1956 and he has just announced the nationalisation of the Suez Canal....

Had any of the players who competed for the inaugural tennis grand slam of 2022 in Melbourne been complete (i.e. sovereign, self-governing) individuals, they would have declared the ‘AO’ boycott before the tournament started.[1][2] Not only because of Djokovic, but also because of Renata Voráčová. Not only out of the camaraderie with the two fellow members of the traveling circus which professional tennis (along with all other professional ‘spectator’ sports) has become, cou

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values are prestigious gatherings of globally renowned scholars across the humanities and the sciences. This year’s lectures addressed the questions of Providing for a nation’s health, in a global context , where philosophers, economists, a physician and a social psychologist offered their take on different aspects of the healthcare response to global pandemics. In this piece, students, research fellows, and visiting fellows currently at Clare Ha

Introduction No one knows about Amir Tataloo. Bahman Ghobadi’s film No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009) could be seen as a dynamic...

Currently Professor of Government at King’s College London, Professor Vernon Bogdanor is a leading expert in British constitutional politics and history and has received a CBE in recognition of his extensive contribution to the field. In his most recent book, titled Britain and Europe in a Troubled World , published in 2020, Professor Bogdanor traces Britain’s historical relationship with the European Union in order to understand how Brexit came to be. In this interview, Pro

Modern-day Singapore prides itself as a ‘global city’ with a commendable level of economic stability as a result of its sustained...

Mariya Ionova wears many hats. She is a Member of the Parliament of Ukraine, holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance and Credit and a...

As of this writing, an Alabama law that would have made it a felony in the state to provide a teenager with gender-affirming healthcare,...

It would be pointless to list all the issues driving so much of society to take on a pessimistic view of our near future and view us as...