Building Global Democracy

Faced with formidable challenges to expression in Cairo's public spaces, urban blogger activists have developed new ways of articulating dissent, namely spatial tactics ranging from boycott campaigns, cyber-activism and protest art, to innovations in mobi

An appeal to Barack Obama to reinvigorate the United States's democracy-promotion efforts in the Arab world is based on flawed understanding both of political Islam and the real needs of the region's people, says Tarek Osman.

the groundswell for democratic change in Arab states and the broader Islamic world began before the turn of the century and continued growing even after President George W. Bush's second-term State Department mostly abandoned the cause. That's been demons

The democratic citizen, on whose vote the legitimacy of the entire political mechanism rests, is called upon to reason using his own brain (and to vote in solitude and as an individual), and associate with others to exchange information and opinions, to c

A lack of coherence among Western leaders, and the use of different standards in judging and then establishing relations with Arab countries on the basis of personal economic and geopolitical interests, has effectively weakened and delayed even more the e

First, the good news. Fiji's political parties may have taken a first step toward restoring Parliamentary democracy when they met in a cordial atmosphere Friday, March 13 with members of the military backed Interim Government and agreed on the issues to b

WASHINGTON, Mar 16 (IPS) - The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama should work hard on areas of common interest with Russia in order to build a "partnership, however uneasy," that would serve Washington's interests in key areas, including non-pr

A letter calling for the Obama administration to maintain a commitment to Arab democracy has sparked an energetic and informative debate on promoting democracy in the Arab world. The letter, signed by 140 analysts, practitioners, bloggers, and activists,

This paper addresses the current revival of Confucianism in China. It analyzes its political issues and outcomes, underlines the possible defects in Confucianism as a theory of politics, i.e., as a science and art of government and a public ethics. It loo

This paper deals with the geo-political implications of neo-universalist tendencies in current Chinese political philosophy. It is stated how Chinese philosophy can contribute to overcome a 'clash' theory of intercultural relations. The author underlines

This essay intends to build an analytical tool for understanding social values. It proceeds by defining the term 'social value', differentiating 'core' and 'non-core' social values and discussing their respective functions in society. Then, it extracts fr

Around the turn of the century, political philosophy became one of the most lively areas of philosophical study in China. An important trend of development is represented by the shift from macro-political philosophy to micro-political philosophy. A carefu

The contemporary Chinese intellectual Kang Xiaoguang has argued that Chinese soft power should be based on Confucian culture, the most influential Chinese political tradition. But which Confucian values should form the core of China's soft power? This pap

For quite some time there has been a collective perception of a moral crisis in post- Mao China. This perception is informed by standards held by members of Chinese society rather than by standards outside of it. In this article, the author attempts to la

This paper presents an overall view of the Philosophy of Tian-xia, a particular form of neo-universalism developed by its author and very much debated in the last years. The system of Tian-xia, or 'all-under-heaven', is a philosophical re-elaboration of a

Democracy assistance has increasingly featured in the foreign policy discourse of the European Union toward the Mediterranean. This article overviews three of its key aspects. First, it shows how the Mediterranean has become an area for democracy assistan

Democracy and development are deeply intertwined in spite of the difficulty of identifying a direct, causal and quantifiable relationship between them. More importantly, they are increasingly understood today as including each other to a great extent and

WASHINGTON, Mar 11 (IPS) - Scores of Middle East and democracy experts released an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday asking him to focus more of his foreign policy efforts at making reforms in the region, including boosting human rights.

Windhoek, Mar 7 (IPS) - The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum has set its sights on becoming a regional parliament with law-making powers. The body was established in 1997 to create a platform for the region's legislators t

Today there is a widespread recognition of the erosion of political community on the territorial basis of the nation-state. Instead, alternative framings of "being" political or of engaging in politics have argued for a more radical post-territorial space