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Modern Legitimacy, Tony Curzon Price
For at least the past thirty years, our state’s claim to legitimacy can be thought of as the marriage of Hobbes and Bentham. The first duty of the state is to deliver security through its monopoly of force and its second duty is to promote the good of all, however defined, and with whatever model of society the state might be using as a working assumption at any time. The basic deal has been: ”protect us, deliver our desires and we’ll play by your rules.”
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Iran’s tide, global sea , Fred Halliday
The months of strikes and demonstrations that convulsed Iran in 1978-79 reached a dramatic culmination in the first eleven days of February 1979, when an epic tide of revolutionary fervour brought the return to Iran from exile of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and overthrew the hitherto powerful regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In the ensuing weeks, the victorious leaders of the popular wave established a new state, the Islamic Republic of Iran; this was proclaimed on 1 April and its...
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Iran/USA relations: tough transition from boxing to chess, Lindsey Hilsum
The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, has said he thinks the relationship between the Islamic Republic and the United States should be less like boxing and more like chess. Lindsey Hilsum is International Editor for Channel 4 News.
That’s maybe because the Iranians are rather good at chess, having supposedly invented the game in the 10th century. For a few miserable years after the 1979 Revolution, it was banned - Ayatollah Khomeini believed it was associated with...
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Democracy for export?, Daniele Archibugi
The image of the past
The idea that freedom and democracy can be exported all over the world is an ancient dream. Athenian democrats, French revolutionaries, and Russian Bolsheviks, to mention only the better-known cases, were convinced that their own political system was good enough to be donated to all peoples. But not even the path to freedom is carpeted with rose-petals: enthusiasm is often mingled with fanaticism; idealism must come to terms with the harsh laws of Realpolitik (see...
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The great political gamble, Vladimir Gelman
A recent article in the Financial Times (reprinted by the Russian newspaper Vedomosti) paints a hypothetical picture of the world in 2012. Sarah Palin has been elected US president, Nicolas Sarkozy marries Madonna, and Dmitry Medvedev resigns as president of Russia, handing over the reins of power to his predecessor. Shortly afterwards he is arrested.
Sometimes, such predictions do have the power of self-fulfilling prophecies. But it would not be out of place to propose a...
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Markelov: A Hero of our Time, Alexander Cherkasov
Time passes by without your noticing.
It's 40 days since they died.
At first it didn't seem possible. Stas and death - somehow they didn't connect. He was far too alive...
Now it's time to sum things up. Old friends were reminiscing -amazingly they'd known each other for more than 15 years. These memories leave a strange feeling - pity, rather than regret. Because if you look back on the life of Stas Markelov, you see quite how much he achieved. ...
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Life and death in Bangladesh, Delwar Hussain
In the late spring of 2008, newspapers in Bangladesh reported that a teenager had been killed at a remote point along the country's northwestern border with India. They stated that 16-year-old Hasibul Islam was shot dead at 5 am as he walked besides the Kalabari border, in Rajshahi district. The perpetrator was a soldier from India's Border Security Force (BSF).
Delwar Hussain is a researcher on Bangladeshi society, who is currently completing his doctorate on the...
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Key role for US women peacekeepers?, Kristen Cordell
"Send me your female troops, your police, your civilian personnel and your senior diplomats and I will ensure that they are all considered; that qualified candidates are rostered; and that the maximum number are deployed to the field as quickly as humanly possible"
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in a Unifem press release, April 2008
The widespread and systematic use of rape as a weapon of war in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has hindered the...
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HIV and women's rights in Uganda: why a new law would hurt women, Sylvia Rowley
Julius Tumwesigye from the western districts of Uganda was accused of hacking his wife to death with a machete last year after finding out she was HIV positive. The police said the 30 year-old man, who also had the virus, blamed his wife of 10 years for infecting him. He reportedly pounced on his wife Glorius one morning as she returned home with their two young children and killed her instantly.
"Last year alone there were five cases of women being murdered by their spouses once the...
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