Crisis of Democracy? – A Global Debate
As Iraq seems on the edge of civil war; as President Bush and Prime Minister Blair step up their rhetoric against terrorism; as protests in defence of human rights and freedoms increase; as the WTO prepares for Hong Kong, openDemocracy(1) poses a fundamental question: “If the basis of democracy is deliberation - who hosts the conversation?”
(PRWEB) October 12, 2005 -- Journalists are saying it, NGOs and Foundations and the POWER commission are saying it, businesses are saying it, even cabinet ministers are saying it - there is a "crisis of democracy".
You might expect an organisation like openDemocracy to agree, and we do. But we also want to do more than exchange complaints and point fingers. We want to understand this crisis in order to know how to address it.
You don’t think this is news?
You want quick answers to fundamental questions?
openDemocracy begins an innovative debate with an article of global reach. Its editor, Isabel Hilton(2) and its founder, Anthony Barnett(3), join forces. We attach the article.
This is the start of a debate. It will be shape-shifting. It will unify the different kinds of struggles for human rights and democracy from dictatorships in the developing world, to genuinely holding power to account in the developed world, to applying democratic principles to the heartless institutions of globalisation.
(1) openDemocracy.net
is pioneering a new type of independent media based on exchange and participation. We are growing and are now read by more than 140,000 thinking people a month in over a hundred countries.
(2) Isabel Hilton
is the editor of openDemocracy. She is a journalist, broadcaster, writer and commentator and has worked for a wide range of international media, including the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Independent, The Sunday Times, the Economist, the New Yorker and the BBC.
Isabel Hilton wrote The Search For The Panchen Lama (2000) and has co-authored other books, including The Falklands War (1982). She has worked on various documentaries for the BBC, such as Petra And The General, an investigation of the life and death of Petra Kelly (1994).
An expert on Chinese affairs, Isabel Hilton holds a degree in Sinology from the University of Edinburgh and also studied at the Peking Language Institute and the Fudan University in Shanghai. After working for The Sunday Times covering home and foreign affairs she joined the Independent in 1986 as Latin American editor. She was appointed European affairs editor and chief feature writer until she left the newspaper in 1995. Isabel Hilton was a presenter for BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight from 1995 until 1998 and then joined Radio 3’s Night Waves.
Isabel Hilton has lectured on foreign affairs, on the European Union's relations with the People's Republic of China at the University of Edinburgh, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies on economic reform in China. She is a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the British Association of China Scholars and is part of the advisory committee of the Latin America Bureau.
(3) Anthony Barnett
is Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of openDemocracy.
Now a member of its executive committee, Barnett was founding director of Charter 88, the British movement for constitutional reform described by the Telegraph as "The most influential pressure group of the decade".
Barnett co-wrote (with Peter Carty) The Athenian option – radical reform for the House of Lords (1998) and is the author of Iron Britannia (1982) and This Time: our constitutional revolution (1997). He was editor of Power and the Throne (1994), and has written for The Guardian, The New Statesman, Prospect and extensively at openDemocracy.
Anthony Barnett co-founded the Town and Country Forum in 1995, with Roger Scruton, to facilitate dialogue about the conflicts between country and town life in literature and politics. He is co-editor of Town and Country (1998), a book of essays which emerged from this project.
###
Bookmark -
Del.icio.us |
Furl It |
Technorati |
Ask |
MyWeb |
Propeller |
Live Bookmarks |
Newsvine |
TailRank |
Reddit |
Slashdot |
Digg |
Stumbleupon |
Google Bookmarks |
Sphere |
Blink It |
Spurl
|
