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Local councils, love and loathing – a life story

From 80s municipal socialism to the Blairite "regeneration game" and beyond – a tale of hopes betrayed, and dreams that still need to be fulfilled.

openDemocracy.net - free thinking for the world

Local councils, love and loathing – a life story

From 80s municipal socialism to the Blairite "regeneration game" and beyond – a tale of hopes betrayed, and dreams that still need to be fulfilled.

openDemocracy.net - free thinking for the world

This week's editor

TR, editor

This week Tom Rowley and the oDR team edit the front page.

Editor y responsable de redes sociales y desarrollo de audiencia. América Latina

DemocraciaAbierta busca contratar a un editor a tiempo parcial, enfocado en el desarrollo de redes sociales y de audiencia, y ubicado en América Latina. Fecha límite de admisión de candidaturas: 7 de Julio.

Editor and social media/audience development role: Latin America

DemocraciaAbierta – the ‘Latin’ section of the global website openDemocracy, is seeking to hire a part-time editor with a media / audience development focus to be located in Latin America. Please submit your candidacy before the 7th of July.

Dominance and disruption: power is won by consent, and resisted through understanding

On the history of hegemony: an informed sense of how power has been understood can only cultivate a much stronger sense of how it operates today. Book review.

A world in trouble: drought, war, food, flight

The disruptions of climate and conflict are sparking perilous global insecurity.

A giant step towards a nuclear free world is in reach – but will it be sabotaged at the last minute?

A ground-breaking new UN Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty could be agreed tomorrow – or it could be consigned to the special purgatory of lost opportunities that could have saved the world.

Book: Liberalism in neoliberal times

A new book, based on the openDemocracy series of the same name, is now available.

The return of Banisadr to the heart of Iranian politics

A permanent state of crisis has intersected with the Supreme leader’s actions to create conditions for the emergence of a new ‘post-reformist’ conjuncture. Could this lead to a paradigm shift in Iran?

Turkey’s fight against Gülen in the South Caucasus

The Turkish authorities’ fight against real and imagined enemies in the Gülen movement has now reached Azerbaijan and Georgia.

DRC: the Moïse Katumbi problem

Kabila’s grasping for straws abroad points to a regime running out of options.

Brexit: where were women’s voices?

Recent creative writing and films feature women’s voices on Brexit, many of whom explore the paradox of migrants voting to leave the EU.

The work is not undignified, but how you treat domestic workers is

Today, through this text, I want to claim my rights and those of my compañeras.

#FreeMalobrodsky

Russian theatre is fighting for the right to independence and diversity — and showing how to do that beyond political protest. RU

Local councils, love and loathing – a life story

From 80s municipal socialism to the Blairite ‘regeneration game’ and beyond – a tale of hopes betrayed, and dreams that still need to be fulfilled.

Acid attacks are on the rise – the government must act now

Perpetrators of hate crime and gang violence are turning to easily available weapons. Muslim communities are frightened.

Naomi Klein discusses the climate crisis, Trump's brand, and America's war on memory

The author of No Is Not Enough says we must tackle our “inner Trump” in order to create a better world.

Seeking refuge in refugees

Glimpses of life in a Greek refugee camp through the diary of a young volunteer.

Transforming political participation in Latin America

We are in the presence of a demos, the politically organized society, which has been undergoing changes in Latin America and the world, while politics has remained stagnant. Español Português

The terrible consequences of deregulation and cutting corners

After Grenfell, it’s time for the government to urgently rethink its attitude to regulation.

For Singaporeans, western education has not provoked a desire for more democratic participation

Singapore and China's citizens do not want more democracy, they want better political outcomes and more responsive government. A reply to Francesco Grillo, Annalisa Cappellini and Giulia Lamoratta. 

Why BigData is running roughshod over the NHS - and what to do about it

The NHS is being treated as both a 'cash cow' and a 'data cow', a string of recent scandals suggest. And now there's another privacy-bashing tech bonanza on the way, as ID cards rise from the ashes of Brexit policy.

Sustaining peace

Half of all peace deals fail within five years. This is how you make them work.

Shielding data from the "five eyes": we need to stand up for encryption

A coalition of 83 organizations and individuals from five countries has come together to demand stronger defence of encryption, following the “Five Eyes” ministerial meeting in Ottawa last week.

Rio de Janeiro´s violence: a tale of two cities

80% of Rio de Janeiro’s residents believe they are at risk of being murdered in the next year. In a face to face encounter with the city´s darker side, how do you confront a suffering community? Español Português

This article is published as part of the campaign Instinto de Vida.

The crude reality of México that only the murdered and tortured know

“In Mexico City, about 88% feel unsafe when away from home no matter what time of day it is. In the internationally-renowned Mexican resort city Acapulco, 86 percent feel insecure.” Spanish

La cruda realidad de México que solo los asesinados y torturados conocen

México es un país donde hoy el Estado de derecho se aplica sólo a aquellos que pueden pagarlo. Como señaló recientemente el Relator Especial de Naciones Unidas sobre la Tortura, el 98% de los crímenes en México permanecen impunes. English

Es hora de que las ciudades manden

El liderazgo de la ciudad tiene que ser global.  Las ciudades necesitan los recursos y la plataforma para conformar al contexto global en el que operan. English

Fires disproportionately kill vulnerable people, and Grenfell is no different

We need more than just fire safety; we need fire justice, and a culture which takes stock of the fact that it is the poor and the disadvantaged who die in natural disasters.

It´s time for cities to lead

In 2005, Ken Livingstone convened a gathering of 18 city leaders that would go on to become the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group – one of the most powerful urban advocacy networks in the world. Spanish