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How Universities Learnt A Lesson in Humility – and are all the better for it
Universities are still often known as ivory towers, other-worldly spaces of solitude where privileged elites known as academics seek refuge from the harsh realities of the world. Although pejorative, the ivory tower image, originally Biblical, still manages to charm and seduce. Think of the majestic sandstone quadrangle of the University of Sydney. Stroll through the [...]
Humility and Democracy
Democracy and ethics: an old philosophical subject that is much neglected today, not least because of widespread agreement that democracy stands for ethical pluralism. Democracy, the self-government of equals, is presumed to be incompatible with attempts to clothe citizens in one-size-fits-all Ethical Systems, such as the Nation and State, or History, Christianity, the Market, or [...]
Democracy: the Rule of Nobody?
Drawn from lectures originally delivered at the Institute for Management and Planning, Teheran, 5th May 2004 and (in revised form) at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), 14th July 2004. The Sovereign People? Among the most taken-for-granted propositions when discussing democracy is the claim that it is a special form of government by the people [...]
Does Democracy Have a Violent Heart?
Published in David Pritchard (ed.), War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens. Talk delivered at the conference WAR, CULTURE AND DEMOCRACY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS, 4-6 July 2006, University of Sydney. Click here to read PDF format Click here to read the Epilogue in PDF format Watch Videos Here
Por que a democracia?
Article in Grial, Revista Galega De Cultura, Número 167 Julio/agosto/septiembre 2005 View and read Spanish PDF format
Against Servitude, CSD Interview with Quentin Skinner
Quentin Skinner talks to John Keane about Machiavelli, Hobbes, and the neo-Roman theory of liberty. This is an edited extract from a long interview conducted with him in May 2000 by John Keane and Milton Tosto. This text was published in the CSD Bulletin, Summer 2000, Vol. 7. N. 2: 10-13. Quentin Skinner is Regius Professor of [...]
On the road to Utopia?
John Keane interviews Francis Fukuyama and asks him if the wake proved premature. Source: ‘The Weekend Review’, The Independent, June 19, 1999 The ‘end of history’ made a star of Francis Fukuyama. John Keane meets him to ask if the wake proved premature. History is fickle. In 1988, it played a mean trick on Francis Fukuyama. [...]
Democracy and the Decline of the Left
From Norberto Bobbio, 1989, Democracy and Dictatorship. The Nature and Limits of State Power, Polity Press. Introduction (vii-xxviii) Read Introduction (vii-xxviii) published in Norberto Bobbio, 1997 in PDF format