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1. ARTICLE OF THE MONTH: NGOs AND THE CHALLENGE OF DEMOCRACY. A DEBATE
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The protests at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001 brought to the fore the issue of opposition movements' involvement in transnational political decision-making. In 2003, Eurozine published a benchmark contribution to the debate by social and political scientist Claus Leggewie, entitled "Transnational movements and the question of democracy". The article has now been published in Russian translation by the Moscow Journal "Neprikosnovennij Zapas", together wtih the strong responses it generated. Eurozine publishes the debate in full.

Social movements, or NGOs, can provide an early warning system to mainstream politics. But once institutionalized, their lack of a democratic mandate raises problems of legitimacy: NGOs have a democratizing effect without themselves being democratic. This paradox must be negotiated if democracy is to respond to the global situation, writes Leggewie.

Taking cue from the principle of direct democracy, Leggewie introduces the concept of transnational "sectoral constituencies". These exist in policy areas that are not territorially defined -- gender or environmental politics for example -- and are steered via referenda voted on by expert transnational publics. For "world citizenship" to be worthy of its name, nation-state citizenship must be supplemented by a sectoral demos such as this.

The Russian responses reveal the western orientation of Leggewie's model. Sergey Lukashevsky, director of the Demos Centre in Moscow, points out that the dissident movements in Soviet Russia were among the forerunners of modern NGOs. These advocated democracy per se -- as many social coalitions in countries with imperfect democracies still do. But how would they fit into a democratic system in which coalitions represent specific publics? And would competition for official status force NGOs to act like mainstream political parties?

Boris Mezhuev, an historian of philosophy and political scientist at Moscow State University, is also wary of sectoralization. Radically, he argues that global democracy as principle is inconsistent if it excludes cultural forms outside western liberalism. But would western nations be prepared to tolerate intervention from outside the West? Then, there is the historical tendency of the critical left to capitulate with power once it enters its orbit. Transnational NGOs may become a vehicle for corporate interests to launder "cultural and political capital".

Valery Tishkov, former Russian Minister for Nationalities, points out that national liberation struggles, which have proliferated in post-Soviet Russia, should not be conflated with NGOs. Often, organizations calling themselves "movements" are by no means popular. Some pursue hopelessly separatist agendas; others perform foreign policy functions a state finds inconvenient to accomplish directly; others install "benevolent colonialism". Tishkov warns of placing the legitimacy of the nation-state at the mercy of such ambiguous entities.

Claus Leggewie
TRANSNATIONAL MOVEMENTS AND THE QUESTION OF DEMOCRACY

This article is available in English, German, Bulgarian, and Russian.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-20-leggewie-ru.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2003-09-29-leggewie-bg.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2003-02-06-leggewie-de.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2003-02-03-leggewie-en.html

Sergey Lukashevsky
A COMMENT ON LEGGEWIE'S ARTICLE

This article is available in English and Russian.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-01-lukashevsky-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-01-lukashevsky-ru.html

Boris Mezhuev
THE DEAD-ENDS OF TRANSNATIONALIZATION

This article is available in English and Russian.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-01-mezhuev-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-01-mezhuev-ru.html

Valery Tishkov
AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF NGOs

This article is available in English and Russian.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-01-tishkov-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-01-tishkov-ru.html

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2. CULTURAL JOURNALS MEETING IN ISTANBUL
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Under the heading "Neigbourhoods", editors, authors, and intellectuals from all over Europe will meet in Istanbul in November to exchange ideas and experiences.

The 18th European Meeting of Cultural Journals is organized by Eurozine and its Turkish partners, "Cogito" and "Varlik". Istanbul is ideally suited for a conference that will not only tackle the manifold links between the EU and Turkey, but also discuss potential cultural cooperation and conflicts, in general and within the network of cultural journals in particular.

In recent decades, the deadly potential inherent in neighbourly relations has become more and more obvious: the Basque conflict, Belfast, Israel-Palestine... In the former Yugoslavia, we could see how seemingly peaceful neighbourly co-existence developed into full-scale civil war. Shocked by the apparently sudden outburst of violence, we ask what makes people cease to define themselves as inhabitants of the same street and instead as belonging to different and opposing (ethnic, social, religious) groups. But we tend to forget that the borders inside and outside the neighbourhood are constantly redrawn, and that conflicts (and in most cases their regulation) are part and parcel of everyday life among neighbours. Every neighbourhood has its groups and its history.

The notion of "neighbourhood" thus brings with it the notion of "borders". These two concepts in combination are strongly present in the contemporary European cultural and political discussion: Where are the borders of Europe? Is it at all meaningful to draw such demarcation lines? Inside the European Union, where international borders seem to disappear, traces of the old divisions and hostilities persist in people's memories and identities. Fifteen years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, neighbouring countries still have little interest in each other.

Even if every neighbourly relation -- in the staircases and gardens of apartment houses as well as in international politics -- seems to carry with it a potential conflict, the neighbourhood is also a place for exchange and solidarity. The theme of the 18th European Meeting of Cultural Journals, "Neigbourhoods", provides an opportunity to discuss these questions on historical, theoretical, and practical levels.

The Eurozine meeting will take place from 4 to 7 November 2005. The full programme of the conference will be presented at the end of June and will include discussions on topics such as: "Only Neighbours? Turkey and EUrope", "'Love Thy Neighbour'. The Politics of Human Rights", and "(Re)sounding Empires. Old Neighbours, New Conflicts?" Keynote speakers and panellists provisionally confirmed include: Yasar Kemal, Alain Badiou, Jack Goody, Claus Leggewie, and Juliet Mitchell.

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3. NEW ARTICLES
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Dorothea Redepenning
RUSSIAN CONTENT IN A EUROPEAN FORM
The dialogue of cultures in music.

This article is now available in German, Russian, and English.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-31-redepenning-de.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-31-redepenning-ru.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2004-09-14-redepenning-en.html

Georges Corm
LEBANON: A NEW PLAYING FIELD FOR AGITATORS
On the current insecurities and tensions in the Lebanon.

This article is available in German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-23-corm-de.html

Jean Lacouture
"BOW YOUR HEAD NO LONGER, MY BROTHER": THE ASIA-AFRICA CONFERENCE IN BANDUNG, 1955
The first conference between Asia and Africa occurred in 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. No one there believed independence and the end of exploitation to be possible. This conference in April 1955 is now seen as the marker of the end of colonialism.

This article is available in German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-23-lacouture-de.html

Rafael Kandiyoti
PIPELINES IN PERMAFROST: RUSSIA DELIVERS OIL AND GAS. CHINA, JAPAN, AND KOREA WANT AS MUCH OF IT AS POSSIBLE
A look at Putin's policies and the supply and demand of oil in the Far East.

This article is available in German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-20-kandiyoti-de.html

David Baran, Mathieu Guidère
THE IRAQI INSURGENCY: ACTIVE AND BLIND
David Baran and Mathieu Guidère uncover the effects of politics and the media on the armed insurgents in Iraq.

This article is available in German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-20-baranguidere-de.html

Pierre Lagrange
FOLLOW US INTO SPACE. MARS: NASA INVITES CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Nasa and ESA have very different styles of publicizing their missions: Nasa brings the viewer with them into space, but ESA only shares its mission with the public after the fact. So why are there more conspiracy theories about Nasa than about ESA?

This article is available in German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-19-lagrange-de.html

Amnon Kapeliouk
POISON WITH A BIT OF HONEY: THE WITHDRAWAL FROM GAZA AND THE LOGIC BEHIND IT
The death of Yasser Arafat and the re-election of President Bush have made peace in the Middle East imaginable, but has Ariel Sharon's decision to withdraw from Gaza helped in this peace process or hindered it?

This article is available in German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-19-kapeliouk-de.html

Vladimir Malakhov
RACISM AND MIGRANTS
What lies at the heart of institutionalized racism in Russia?

This article is now available Russian and English.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-18-malakhov-ru.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2003-03-14-malakhov-en.html

Mykola Riabchuk
UKRAINE AT THE CROSSROADS: CAN A STATE BASED ON BLACKMAIL BE REFORMED?
What will it take to really change the Ukrainian political system?

This article is now available in Russian and German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-18-riabchuk-ru.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-02-12-riabchuk-de.html

Caroline Moorehead
NECESSARY LIES
The lies told by and about immigrants.

This article is now available in Swedish and English.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-18-moorehead-sv.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2004-05-03-moorehead-en.html

Rada Ivekovic
TRANSBORDER TRANSLATING
Translation is a form of resistance, but also "the original mother tongue of humankind". With a broad interpretaion of the concept of translation, Rada Ivekovic looks at the principles, concepts and symbolic values of borders and boundaries.

This article is now available in Swedish and English.
>> http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-18-ivekovic-sv.html
>> http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-01-14-ivekovic-en.html

Mitchell Cohen
AUTO-EMANCIPATION AND ANTI-SEMITISM: HOMAGE TO BERNARD LAZARE
Does emancipation create freedom and equality? Mitchell Cohen takes a closer look at the process of emancipation and the Jewish experience.

This article is available in English and Italian.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-10-cohen-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-10-cohen-it.html

Sadik J. Al-Azm
TIME OUT OF JOINT: WESTERN DOMINANCE, ISLAMIST TERROR, AND THE ARAB IMAGINATION
Sadik J. Al-Azm's views on September 11 and the "clash" between East and West. There's more to it than just religion and spiritual values.

This article is available in English and German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-09-alazm-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-09-alazm-de.html

Niels Kadritzke
QUESTIONS FOR TURKEY: THE ARMENIANS, 1915
During World War I, over one million Armenians were killed in the Ottoman empire. At the present, ninety years later, demands are being made on the Turkish government to officially recognize the horror of these crimes.

This article is available in German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-06-kadritzke-de.html

Il'ya Kukulin
THE REGULATION OF PAIN: COPING WITH TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES IN SOVIET WAR LITERATURE
Soviet writers' expression of existential insecurity caused by their experiences in World War II signalled a liberation from the censorship of the 1930s. But the Brezhnev regime put an end to that. Only since the 1990s have Russian writers been able to explore openly the subject of war.

This article is available in German, English and Russian.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-06-kukulin-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-03-kukulin-de.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-03-kukulin-ru.html

Niels Kadritzke
THE TURKS MARCH ON BRUSSELS: EUROPE, THE TREATY OF SEVRES, AND EMALISM
What factors does Turkey have to contend with in order to become a member of the European Union? Niels Kadritzke on the role of history and geography in Turkey's chances at accession.

This article is available in German.
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-05-kadritzke-de.html