Over the past week, there has been major fracas over the issue of fracking in the UK. The little village of Balcombe in West Sussex became the stage of the latest showdown between environmentalists and the Caudrilla drilling company, with the police acting as umpire. Watching reels of footage from the protest, I was particularly […]
Recent Articles
Pressure Groups – Undermining or Enhancing Democracy?
The very term pressure group conjures up images of a group of hardened activists, sat in a small room all wearing the same t-shirt with the group slogan emblazoned across it, they sit in the dim light discussing plans of protest and direct action. We think of a highly active, small group, who, in the […]
The Egyptian Dilemma
Since the military coup that ousted President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power in July, the West has been forced into a difficult position regarding events in Egypt. Whenever the military feels the need to intervene through a coup something must be going wrong in the state in question. This also raises the prospect […]
The EU’s Free Trade Agreement: can the moral dilemma be easily solved?
The beginning of this month marked an EU free trade agreement with Colombia and Peru to liberalise trade in the agricultural, manufacturing and fisheries industries. This is the first of what is predicted to be several deals with South American nations. Free trade has always been vociferously supported by neo-liberal, free-market capitalists, and the European Parliament is […]
Is State Capitalism the most viable alternative to Free Market Capitalism?
To even the strongest supporters of capitalism, there is little argument that the global economic crisis that began in 2008 has exposed some of the fundamental weaknesses of the system, and in particular the ‘free market’ element that has existed in many Western democracies since the end of the Second World War. This exposure has […]
American politics and money: Why the Republican Party shouldn’t cash in on super PACs in the 2014 mid-terms
By Hilary Stoten We can all thank Citizens United and SpeechNow.org, the two Supreme Court decisions in 2010 for reopening the doors to overwhelming amounts of unlimited corporate money in US elections. These seminal rulings led to the birth of a new political vehicle in the campaign finance world: super PACs. Super PACs are a fresh […]
Future food
Cooking a five-ounce burger is not the typical way to enter global headlines, but then again, the slightly charred beef served up to the world media on Monday, was no ordinary piece of meat. Assembled from tiny pieces of cow muscle, that have been cultured from stem cells and grown in a laboratory, Dr Mark […]
A guide to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
By Thomas Williamson US Secretary of State John Kerry is leading yet another attempt to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The harsh reality is that like so many more before him he will probably fail to broker a lasting peace, due to the thicket of issues that surround the conflict. The dispute […]
Living the Indian dream? The prospects that await foreign investors in India
David Cameron’s expedition to India in February of this year seems to have been perfectly timed and potentially very lucrative. On his visit, the Prime Minister said: “I want Britain and India to have a special relationship… this is a relationship about the future, not [about] the past”. Beyond the delicate imperial history of the […]
Gibraltar: Posturing or a Threat?
In 1713, the small peninsula of Gibraltar was ceded from Spain to Great Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht after being captured in 1704 by mostly British and Dutch forces. Since then it has served as a trading outpost of the British Empire with the occasional Spanish siege, the last of which was in 1779. […]
Spain’s Gibraltar border tax is a distraction from deeper Economic problems
Spain’s foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo’s recent threat to impose a €50 toll on vehicles crossing the Spain-Gibraltar border reflects nothing more than a cynical attempt to deflect attention from the countries failing economy. Unemployment in Spain is currently at 25% (second only to Greece in the Eurozone) and the IMF last Friday warned it […]
The case of Edward Snowden illustrates: USA is no longer a superpower
Since the end of the Second World War, America has been the undisputed superpower of our world, matched only by the sheer size and nuclear capabilities of the Soviet Union. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and thus the collapse of the USSR, America has been the unprecedented champion with military and economic might […]
Should the Conservative party be gloating right now?
The opening years of the Conservative and Liberal Democrats coalition government provided few opportunities for the self-congratulation that comes so naturally to the present generation of Conservative politicians. The economy barely grew, the NHS was left in chaos by Andrew Lansley’s reforms and the coalition government’s promise of a new politics was tainted by repeated […]
The Syrian conflict- time to start thinking outside the box
An end to the violence and conflict in Syria is not in sight, far from it. The UN estimates that around 100,000 have died in the conflict so far and the number is set to rise as both the Assad regime and the rebel movement refuse to end the bloodshed. Many suggestions have been put […]
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny under the microscope
Russia is back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons again. This time, the regime of President Vladimir Putin has received ample criticism for the imprisonment of the informal Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Thanks to the international coverage, the majority will now know who Navlany is, but just to recap: Navalny was sentenced […]
Global Political Insight 