The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Steven Friedman -
South African democracy spans two very different worlds. In one, people complain loudly but enjoy full democratic rights – in the other, most remain unheard and battle for the right to speak. In both, life is difficult for those who do not conform.
Among political scientists - and many of the South Africans who can speak - it is fashionable to label this country’s democracy a ‘party dominant system’. Democracy, is, in this view, limited by the iron grip of the...
Walden Bello -
The late Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew famously argued that Asia was no place for liberal democracy. Instead, he argued for a kind of soft authoritarianism guided by “Asian values,” where the harmony of a one-party state trumped the messiness of competitive elections.
For years, many of his peers seemed to agree.
Then, when Burma’s military took its baby steps away from dictatorship four years ago, it seemed that in a region where the merits of authoritarianism and...
VICE News traveled around the world speaking to people about democracy and differences in global attitudes towards popular rule. Covering many countries on almost all continents, VICE found young people disillusioned with the manner in which democracy is applied. People understand democracy to be a system of governance where elected politicians act out the wishes of the people who put them into power. It’s “peoples’ power”, but overall there’s a sense that...
Philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues that our current brand of global capitalism is quickly outgrowing democracy and that a divorce between the two is inevitable. This leads to an array of social and geopolitical concerns regarding the public commons, including the emergence of new forms of apartheid. New walls are emerging between, for example, the United States and Mexico, Israel and the West Bank in addition to a new obsession with how to isolate Europe from Africa. The paradox of...
Mass person-to-person collaboration has the potential to upend the fundamental power structure of the world as we know it. Not just hyperbole, but a process already taking place across the UK and the world. "Us Now" follows the fate of Ebbsfleet United, a football club owned and managed by 30,000 of its online fans; Zopa, a bank in which everyone is the CEO, and CouchSurfing, a vast online network whose members share their homes with strangers. The founding principles of these...
"Where is democracy today and where is it likely to go tomorrow?" asks Marwan Bishara of Al Jazeera. He argues that democracy, together with capitalism, has brought astonishing levels of prosperity. So why is it in trouble, not only in the West, but in all regions of the world? Is the concentration of wealth a threat to democracy? Are we seeing the return of a more radical right based on ethnic nationalism with xenophobia and racism thrown into the mix? Is there a renewed desire...
