International

Global capitalism frees private owners from the social controls that sovereign States alone are strong enough to impose on them

On July 25th 2016, Australia’s ABC network broadcast a documentary from its ‘Four Corners’ series that was to shake the country’s reputation. ‘Australia’s Shame’, exposed the conditions and practices of the Northern Territory’s Don Dale youth detention facility in Darwin, and revealed the harrowing circumstances in which children were being kept. Of the detainees incarcerated […]

Nationalism, nativism, populism are in the air these days. Their relation to democracy is widely seen as problematic. Can political philosophy help? I offer Village readers this ABC of the so-called “national question”: A. For democrats and progressives internationalism, not nationalism, is the primary value. We are internationalists out of solidarity as members of the […]

Walking around the complex of rocks, Doric columns and temples of the Acropolis in Athens evokes the debt Western Civilisation owes to the ancient Graeco- Roman world. It was here that the Athenian City State developed the first and most sophisticated philosophical notions of how a democracy should work. It remains remarkable how much of […]

Brexit will probably never happen. The news narrative has become one of delay, with the odd Brexiteer keeping the flag flying in the Daily Telegraph but a lot of stasis. Next year, there will be many stories about the major problems that Brexit will cause. Negative economic effects will loom. Village editorialised in its last […]

It attests to the eccentricity and archaic nature of British democracy that it has taken all of 13 years to finally receive an independent report from John Chilcot on why Britain was dragged into supporting the George W Bush invasion of Iraq in 2003. Viewed from the perspective of today it is not unfair to […]

The impact of Brexit on the internationalist agenda and international development remains to be seen. The 28 member states of the EU constitute the world’s biggest donor group, providing over half of international aid. European institutions deliver aid under the EU’s neighbourhood policy to countries such as Turkey and Morocco (the largest recipients), as well […]