A collaboration with The New School & the European Democracy Institute
 
Year: <span>2020</span>

Year: 2020

Digital Authoritarianism and Trolling in Turkey

Written by:

Photo: author – Dem’li Oralet; Source In 2007, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) had its second election victory, increasing its vote share to 47,8 and consolidating power. In the same year, it imposed important regulations to ‘clean’ the Internet of undesirable content. Law 5651, On Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Combating Crimes committed by means of such Publication, was passed quietly without any opposition in …

Joe Biden’s Message of Healing

Written by:

Photo: Joe Biden; source: WikiCommons. Joe Biden went to Pittsburgh on August 31 to make a campaign speech condemning the violence Donald Trump incites. That was the immediate reason for speaking out, but it was also an occasion to speak up for a better America, one that most citizens can affirm and from which no one should feel excluded. The operative term is “should.” Biden’s speech is an …

What We Can All Learn from the Lebanese

Written by:

On August 4, 2020, 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut’s port blew up, destroying the city’s main commercial hub and damaging large areas of the Lebanese capital. The blast killed more than 170 people, wounded more than 6,000, left nearly 300,000 homeless, and caused damage worth $10-15 billion. Lebanon has been crippled by long-running crises for decades. The country endured a devastating 15-year civil war and …

Now Is Not the Time to Polemicize Against A Broad Anti-Trump Coalition

Written by:

In politics timing is everything. All intelligent political criticism proceeds from this premise. Unintelligent criticism not so much. The next three months will be crucial for the fate of democracy in the U.S. And the outcome of the November election will determine whether the American system of government can furnish even minimally decent and effective responses to the pressing challenges of COVID-19 and racial and economic injustice. As …

Memory Politics in an Illiberal Regime

Written by:

Hungary’s new Trianon memorial “Memorial of National Unity,” Budapest, Hungary, August 2020. Photo by author. As problematic monuments are being brought down in recent anti-racist protests around the world, Hungary, in contrast, saw the completion of a deeply flawed and tone-deaf memorial.  Built for the centennial of the Trianon Peace Treaty, the “Memorial of National Unity” in front of the Hungarian Parliament has a minimalist style echoing that …

Democracy “As If“

Written by:

Statue of Man at Work, Bratislava, Slovakia, author Diego Delso, (via WikiCommons) More than a century ago, Hans Vaihinger formulated his philosophy “as if” to describe our willing choice to live in a world of logical contradictions. As we cannot reach our ideals  (e.g. a truly just society), we produce imperfect fictional explanations full of deliberate errors to fill in logical gaps and oversee the inconsistencies. When the …

Is Some Version of Our Future Now Playing Out on the Streets of Minsk?

Written by:

Protest actions in Minsk (Belarus), August 16, 2020 (Source: WikiCommons) A contest over the legitimacy of an election and the illegitimacy of an autocrat is currently playing out on the streets of Minsk and throughout Belarus. I have no particular expertise about Belarus and nothing profound to say about this conflict. Belarus’s longtime President Alexander Lukashenko is a dictator who rose to power on the basis of nationalist …

Pandemic Politics

Written by:

Reflections on the first appearance of the Biden – Harris team “Biden gave the best speech of his life!”  “Kamala is killing it!”  “The two speeches, of Biden and Harris, affectively expressed compassion and warmth, as they made sharp political points.”  These were my Facebook responses to the coming out of the Biden – Harris team. Although I generally don’t use Facebook to express such judgments, I couldn’t constrain …

From Mafia State to ”Parish” Republic

Written by:

Protest at the SNP Square on 9th of March 2018 in response to the murder of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová (via WikiCommons) Slovakia is a rather unique case within post-1989 Central Europe as far as democratic transition is concerned. The lack of a tradition of statehood is the most evident difference between Slovaks and the other nations of Central Europe. It is necessary to keep this fact in …