_Progressive Forum

Dangerous liaisons! Niebuhrians and Neocons

10 August 2009. Therese Feiler exposes the ideological continuities in the foreign policy of Bush and Obama, as the Afghanistan War is spinning increasingly out of control. The theories of Reinhold Niebuhr, Obama’s favourite philosopher, turn out to be problematic for they seek to justify military interventions on the basis of an assessment of the human condition purporting to be both realist and pessimistic. Instead of confining themselves to merely justifying the war as a lesser evil, however, progressive thinkers ought to raise issues of moral responsibility - and, if need be, culpability. more

What did the Iranians vote for?

18 July 2009. Nora Mokdad interprets the Iranian election results - notwithstanding potential vote rigging - as an endorsement of Ahmedinejad’s policies. The results constitute nothing less than a rejection of Obama’s conciliatory gestures, with consequential implications for Iranian nuclear policy. This obstinate foreign policy, Mokdad concludes, plays into the hands of all those forces in Israel that advocate a proxy war against the pro-Iranian, Lebanese Hezbollah. more

Waves of Mutilation

16 June 2009. Ross McKibbin looks back in anger at twelve years of New Labour. The managerial style of politics embodied by Tony Blair encouraged a narrow worldview hinging on “the aspirational classes”. Alas, it was precisely this part of the electorate that lost faith in New Labour’s free-market policies, as household debt increased dramatically during the financial crisis. Even the considerable success in the fields of education and health risks being undermined by the current downturn. more

_Events

The energy dilemma: How to secure the energy supply in Europe and combat global warming?

28. April 2010 _ Brussels: In cooperation with the Committee of the Regions in Brussels, Das Progressive Zentrum will organize the workshop “The energy dilemma: How to secure the energy supply in Europe and combat global warming?” This event will be the third one in the series of workshops “The European Social Model after the Crisis” funded by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany and will thus sustain the exchange process between East and West initiated in Berlin in October 2009. more