Isiah Berlin on the Struggle for Recognition in Nationalism
“It is this desire for reciprocal recognition that leads the most authoritarian democracies to be, at times, consciously preferred by …
Category Archives: Politics
Michael Billig on the invention of ‘Language’
‘Mediaeval Europe, in contrast with today’s world, was not a place of official vernacular languages. By and large written communication …
Michel Foucault on Power without the King
Long but incredible excerpt of an ‘analytics’ of power, from Michel Foucault History of Sexuality – Vol 1. ‘This history of sexuality, …
Michael Sandel on Character, Self-knowledge, and Friendship
‘If the deontological ethic fails to redeem its own liberating promise, it also fails plausibly to account for certain indispensable …
The Tragedy of Bangladesh; from ‘minimalist democracy’ to ‘illiberal democracy’
Under such conditions, the institution of patronage rapidly consolidated itself as a dominant form of political practice within the state, …
Bangladesh and the problem of ‘Governance’
Although Bangladesh remains a country characterised by continuing mass poverty, the focus of development efforts since the 1990s has shifted …
William Cavanaugh on Rational and Irrational Violence
‘In foreign policy, the myth of religious violence serves to cast nonsecular social orders, especially Muslim societies, in the role …
Joseph Canning on the Clericalisation of the Church
Nevertheless there arises the intrusive thought, out of bounds for a historian: this was the moment of the great wrong …
Focal Dilemma of Contemporary Bangladesh’s Politics?
The focal dilemma at the heart of Bangladesh’s politics, or false dilemma? “A nation cannot be separated from the its …
Anatol Lieven on Justice in Pakistan
The Police “The problems affecting the police and the official judicial system in Pakistan are so many and so great …
