OpenDemocracy

About openDemocracy

openDemocracy is an independent global media platform publishing up to 60 articles a week and attracting over 8 million visits per year.

Through reporting and analysis of social and political issues, openDemocracy seeks to educate citizens to challenge power and encourage democratic debate across the world. With human rights as our central guiding focus, and open-mindedness as our method, we ask tough questions about freedom, justice and democracy.

openDemocracy aim to help those fighting for their rights gain the agency to make their case and to inspire action.

Labour’s new broadcast channels Trump to good effect

Kieron Monks - 1 October 2018

Everyone enjoyed Labour’s new broadcast. The four-minute redemption story served affirmation to believers and drew admiration from critics. This was the party on safe ground and winning over opponents, rather than the treacherous terrain where it is denounced by its own officials.

For many viewers, the tale of rundown communities rediscovering their confidence and dignity through new opportunities provided by a benevolent state was a distillation of the Labour mission at its most elementally pure. No flag waving in pursuit of some esoteric foreign goal. No saving the whale or disbanding the army. Nothing radical at all. Just bread-and-butter, no-barnacles-on-the-boat, common-sense civic nationalism that every warring faction with a stake in the big tent could embrace and claim as their own tradition.... See more

Why the distribution of wealth has more to do with power than productivity

Laurie Macfarlane - 30 September 2018

According to a new OECD working paper, Britain is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Net wealth is estimated to stand at around $500,000 per household – more than double the equivalent figure in Germany, and triple that in the Netherlands. Only Luxembourg and the USA are wealthier among OECD countries.

On one level, this isn’t too surprising – Britain has long been a wealthy country. But in recent decades Britain’s economic performance has been poor. Decades of economic mismanagement have left the UK lagging far behind other advanced economies. British workers are now 29% less productive than workers in France, and 35% less than in Germany. How can this discrepancy between high levels of wealth and low levels of productivity be explained?... See more

The undemocratic tide in Britain is real – how Labour reacts is crucial

Nancy Platts - 28 September 2018

For the first time, lack of faith in politics, politicians and government has become one of the top ten issues for Britain, polls show. How should politicians respond?

In his keynote conference address on Wednesday, Jeremy Corbyn pledged to honour the martyrs of the Peterloo massacre – those brave 15 killed fighting for democratic rights some 200 years ago – by “carrying forward the struggle to protect and extend democratic rights.”

It’s no small task – and Labour will need a clear plan to make this ambition a reality.

We’re currently witnessing a concerted effort to twist our democracy even further in the executive’s favour. Many are starting to notice.... See more

Brexit has revealed the Northern Powerhouse as a colonial enterprise

Steve Hanson - 28 September 2018

The Tories’ “Northern Powerhouse” has always relied on historical tropes about bootstrap industrialisation. But it now owes more to the Highland Clearances and Peterloo.

So James Wharton, the Northern Powerhouse minister, has been caught avoiding the north. No doubt he’ll be back up north again like a shot. It was on the cards anyway, as Theresa May reached for it recently, putting it back on the agenda.

Theresa May's recent reaffirmation of the Northern Powerhouse agenda (a term coined by George Osborne and then fully endorsed by his disaster twin Cameron) is unsurprising... See more

Financing a Labour government

Jan Toporowski - 28 September 2018

There are essentially three ways of financing an ambitious Labour Government’s programme of public expenditure. These are through taxation, monetary credit creation, and the issue of debt securities. The sections below explain how each of these three methods works, and their respective limitations. Those limitations mean that, in the end, a Labour Government’s programme will have to be financed by some combination of these three methods. A final section suggests that financial stability should determine the degree to which any of these three methods should be used in financing a Labour programme.... See more

Invisible Britain: The untold stories of those hit by austerity

Natalie Bloomer - 27 September 2018

A new photobook gives an insight into the lives and hopes of the people most affected by government policy.

ast year the Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow used his keynote speech at the Edinburgh television festival to discuss the disconnect between the media and ordinary people. Speaking about the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower he asked:

"Why didn't any of us see the Grenfell action blog? Why didn't we know? Why didn't we have contact?"

They are good questions and ones that all journalists and politicians should have been asking. For far too long people in social housing, the disabled, single parent families, and those hit by benefit cuts and sanctions have been ignored and even vilified by much of the media and political class.... See more

Labour’s plan for greater worker ownership is not ‘anti-business’

Luke Hildyard - 27 September 2018

This week at the Labour Party Conference, John McDonnell announced new proposals giving workers a small ownership stake in the companies they work for, thereby also entitling them to a small proportion of dividend payouts.

Labour’s proposals are based on the principle that when a company does well and generates a profit and pays a dividend, it should share a tiny proportion with the workers responsible for its success. No normal person would object to this. Given the UK’s well documented problems with pay stagnation, low productivity and huge pay gaps between those at the top and everybody else, proposals that put a bit more money in workers’ pockets, and link a small proportion of their pay to company performance, might seem exactly what we need.... See more

"Not on the NHS" - from grommets to hysterectomies - unless you act now

Greg Dropkin and Samantha Wathen - 25 September 2018

The government plans to exclude 17 important medical treatments from the NHS across the whole of England, with more restrictions in the pipeline. A consultation on the proposals is open til this Friday.

At the end of June NHS England formally announced its plan to withdraw 17 clinical procedures meaning they would no longer be routinely offered on the NHS. This move means treatments such as knee arthroscopies for patients with osteoarthritis, and snoring surgery, will no longer be available to anyone on the NHS. And procedures such as varicose vein removal, grommets for glue ear in children, hysterectomy for heavy menstrual bleeding, tonsillectomies, and treatments to release carpal tunnel syndrome or to remove benign skin lesions, will no longer be available to anyone on the NHS, unless complex criteria are met.... See more

Democratic Socialism beyond the New Deal

Cihan Tugal - 25 September 2018

We can lead better lives in an inhabitable world (for more than just a few decades) only if we chart a less governmental, less voting-based path.

The financial and housing devastation of 2008, youth underemployment, and ultimately the victory of the radical right at the polls has resulted in talk of socialism in America. Then the talk turned to growing organization, culminating in serious challenges to the democratic establishment. What many mean by “democratic socialism” is an inclusive version of the New Deal (though there are some who disagree). The original New Deal was white and male. LBJ’s attempts to break that mould remained ineffective and led to incurable divisions within the Democratic Party. Today, a revised New Deal can only rise on the shoulders of women, LGBTQ, minorities, and immigrants, who now lead the anti-establishment challenge. They perhaps can become the left faction of the Democratic Party and build a new country.... See more

Britain’s warfare state

Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis - 24 September 2018

Britain needs an industrial strategy. At the same time, Britain needs to move away from its imperial pretensions to police the world's oceans. The two factors are ever more interlinked.

In September 2017, London hosted the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair, the biggest in the world. Delegations of military officials and politicians from across the globe descended on the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands to play pick ‘n mix with the world’s most deadly technology.

We were granted a press pass to the DSEI the day before it opened, despite applying several months earlier and repeatedly checking up. The pass came through only after we threatened to publicise the case. The opaque arms industry and the governments that support it do not like journalists or civil society dampening the buying mood.... See more

Radical democracy and municipal movements

Jeremy Gilbert, Rahel Sophia Süß, and Alessio Kolioulis - 22 September 2018

Can politics in cities and in Corbyn’s Labour Party come together to facilitate potent collectivities through an explicit commitment to radical democracy? Jeremy Gilbert in conversation.

engagée “Radical Cities”(eRC): In the last two decades, western democracies have been witnessing a steady rise of anti-democratic trends and disappointment with politics. Faced with these challenges, contemporary democracies appear vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. At the same time, a radical change is taking place. Movements in cities around the world – through platforms and transnational networks – are experimenting with new forms of democratic practices and political institutions. This reminds us that the radical history of the last two centuries brought about new theoretical toolboxes which activists have used to overturn and change those concepts that undermine key political notions. To what extent do current political movements challenge traditional notions of democracy, power, and social change?... See more

 

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