Slow, indecisive, vulnerable to manipulation: the charges against democracy are familiar. But as contributions to ‘Esprit’ argue, what makes democracy fragile also makes it strong. Including Michaël Fœssel on democracy’s relation to time, and Axel Honneth on the new spirit of participation.
Czech journal ‘Revolver Revue’ finds a refreshing lack of animosity in the posthumously published memoirs of the dissident Olga Stankovičová. Also: Socialism or Communism – why contemporary historians are getting their terminology wrong.
French journal ‘Revue Projet’ warns against the old assumption that representation must be democratic and argues that the electoral system must be de-privatized. Also: revisiting Bruno Latour’s ‘parliament of things’ – can natural objects be given legal and political representation?
‘Ord&Bild’ explains how Sylvia Plath belatedly came to influence Swedish literary tastes; why William Morris was a forerunner of fantasy fiction; what Richard Sennett gets wrong about cities; and why, after Alexievich, text is held to higher standards of documentary truth than film.
UK journal ‘Index on Censorship’ speaks for those whose ideas, voices and bodies are deliberately disappeared to muffle their dissent. With reports from Xinjiang, Turkey, Ireland and the Mediterranean. Also: disappearing TV comedy – is the audience’s intelligence being insulted?
In ‘Il Mulino’, the historian François Hartog describes the genealogy of the modern concept of heritage and argues that democratization has made heritage all about emotion. Also: how cities can be reinvented in response to the pandemic; and why Italy urgently needs a reform on property tax.
‘Osteuropa’ traces the decline of democratic constitutionalism in Russia and calls Putinism for what it is. Also: on the Kremlin’s increasingly restrictive definition of acceptable protest; and the ethnonationalism of Russia’s National Democratic opposition.
In ‘Soundings’, a reappraisal of the liberal narrative of decolonization; why the Sinn Féin shock may not have been a victory for the left; whether Brexit will inevitably lead to US-style deregulation; and the roots of Brazil’s synthetic totalitarianism.
In ‘Merkur’, Albrecht Koschorke asks whether radical democrats disregard civil rights. Also, why Gerhard Richter’s Birkenau series is less profound than it seems; and how Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court is getting proportionality wrong.
In a Hegel anniversary issue, ‘Razpotja’ calls attention to an underrated quality of the German idealist: his sense of humour. Also, how Hegel predicted capitalism; and why left Hegelians are no less salient for being wrong about communism.
booksa.hr talks to Rachel Kushner about prison, redemption and the first person; to Želimir Periš about postmodern witches and why the end of patriarchy won’t bring utopia closer; and to Etgar Keret about existence and elephants.
Materiality, connection, meaning and process: ‘Czas Kultury’ on artificial intelligence and epistemology – and what slime mould can teach us about social organization. Also: Adam Mickiewicz’s anti-liberalism as door-opener to radical socio-political transformation.
In ‘New Humanist’, openDemocracy journalist Peter Geoghegan describes the Transatlantic networks channelling dark money into Europe’s nativist movements. Also: why the bike is the way forward – on pedal power and social change.
‘Blätter’ publishes a major new essay by Jürgen Habermas on the German-European dialectic: why Merkel’s volte face on the European Recovery Fund is a response to the delayed effects of German reunification. Also: Orbán’s hollow boast and the complicity of European conservatism; and Israeli women against Benjamin Netanyahu.
‘Varlık’ remembers the Turkish novelist, playwright and essayist Adalet Ağaoğlu (1929-2020), the great chronicler of the Republic whose work steered a course between secularization and Islamism. Also: on the resistance to the Turkish government’s proposal to exit the Istanbul Agreement.
In ‘O’r Pedwar Gwynt’, what the Welsh translation of the Rubáiyát reveals about masculinity, power and citizenship at the fin de siècle; how mid-20th century Welsh-language nature writers created an ecology without wild animals; and why the legacy of Protestant Nonconformism is hampering Welsh democracy to this day.