Topics of Interest » Democracy in the 21st Century »
Since 1945, the language and institutions of democracy have taken root in so many different geographic contexts that more than a few presuppositions of democratic theory have been invalidated. As democracy spread through the world, the world has made its mark on democracy, even though the metamorphosis remains largely unregistered in the Atlantic-centred literature on democracy….
The life and death of democracy: Bridget Cotter interviews John Keane
Dr. Bridget Cotter interviews John Keane, 9 June – CSD Bulletin, Summer 2010 John Keane discusses the reception of The Life and Death of Democracy in an interview with Bridget Cotter. This interview was published in the CSD Bulletin, Summer, 2010, Double Issue Vol. 17 NOs. 1 & 2, University of Westminster Press. Download the [...]
A sunny nature is our best defence against rotten luck
Sydney Morning Herald 26-Apr-2010 Page: 9; This is an edited extract from an essay by John Keane, published in the Griffith Review. PDF
The First Recorded Parliament
En su celebrado libro Life and death of democracy el profesor Keane de la Westminster University afirma que la democracia representativa no nació en Inglaterra sino en las Cortes Leonesas de 1188. El escritor Juan Pedro Aparicio relata el magno suceso, para luego mostrar, desde una perspectiva sintetizadora de dos mil años de historia, las [...]
Reflections on A.C Grayling’s Liberty in the Age of Terror
A Defence of Civil Liberties and Enlightenment Value PDF Bloomsbury, London, Berlin and New York, 2009 ; ISBN 978 1 4088 0242 7 This book review appeared in The Monthly (February 2010)
War, Peace and Democracy
Extract from the concluding chapter for David Pritchard (ed.), War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens (Cambridge University Press, 2010). The subject of war and democracy, and their potential symbiosis, has recently been brought to life by the fact that virtually all democracies are today caught in the sticky threads of a permanent war against ‘terror’. [...]
Democracy in the 21st Century: Global Questions
In 1945, following several decades that saw most experiments in democratisation fail, there were only a dozen democracies left on the face of the earth. Since then, despite many ups and downs, democracy has bounced back from near oblivion to become a planetary phenomenon for the first time in its history (Diamond, 2008; Dunn, 2005; [...]
Out of the ordinary – Bad luck, disaster, democracy
BY JOHN KEANE Griffith Review: Edition 28 Still the Lucky Country? (Review’s website here); an edited extract from this essay was published by the Sydney Morning Herald 26-Apr-2010, Page: 9 The Lucky Country by Donald Horne is among my treasured Australian books. When first tempted to open its covers, as an undergraduate student of politics, long-haired and [...]
The life and times of democracy
An interview with John Keane in The Courier, Dundee, Scotland. 2 December 2009 Click here to read in PDF format
Otra tesis acerca de la filosofia de la historia
This essay in Spanish appeared in the Revista Encuentros Uruguayos Año II, Número 2, Noviembre 2009, pp. 208-220 In English the text was published in James Tully (ed.), 1988, Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, Princeton University Press. Chapter 12, pp. 204-17 Revista Encuentros Uruguayos Año II, Número 2, Noviembre 2009 Otras tesis [...]