America’s cities and local leaders have emerged as the institutional frontline of resistance against the Trump administration.However, cities can be more than just a last line of defense against the worst excesses of an authoritarian central government: they have huge, positive potential as spaces from...

Political prisoner and theorist who helped cofound the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, takes a closer look at the historical background of the paradigma between nation-state. With a view to issues of ethnicity and nationhood like the Kurdish question, which have their roots deep...

Social movements in Spain and Taiwan are experiencing new developments in organizing strategy and digital technology that are helping them overcome the fundamental limitations of traditional organizations. Photo: Dainis Graveris

We can understand almost all of today’s crises to be crises of democracy. Representative ‘democracy’ has turned people from empowered citizens to alienated constituents. Libertarian municipalism, which promotes direct democracy, is an essential tool to regain power at the citizen level and provide solutions to...

Defying all the theoretical predictions of the 1930s, capitalism has transformed itself from an economy surrounded by many precapitalist social and political formations into a society that itself has become “economized”. Is there a public realm that can become an arena for the interplay of...

Labor unions are losing political force in the US. Unless organized labor finds solutions to problems pervasive within its own organizations and structures, union membership numbers will continue to shrink. In order to revitalize labor unions, the lack of internal democracy is to be reversed....

In the 1970s, Chicago’s 44th Ward was placed under direct democratic control of its residents, challenging the corrupt mayor’s near-total control over the city. The objective of the ward assembly was two-fold: first, to direct the alderman on legislation in the city council, and second...

The coronavirus pandemic has already changed many aspects of life. How we travel, how we work and how we live. Experts warn it may even change how some of our cities will look and operate in the future. Photo: Zoltan Tasi    

An interview with Florian Schmidt, District councilor for building, planning and facility management in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Berlin at the Our Common City conference in Budapest (February 22 & 23, 2019). Part one: Part two: Part three: Photo: bady qb

  Name Area Description i) Tools for collaborative documents Minutes Information Management/ Documentation Minutes is an excellent open tool for those who just need a simple and professional interface to create quick memos of the results of a meeting. The template can be as simple...

In the US, Minneapolis is not the only city asking the question of how to approach public safety and emergency response after national unrest following the death of George Floyd. The calls to redirect money away from the police come as cities face steep budget...

Essential workers and their families have increasingly been forced out as Airbnb-style holiday rentals have taken over a third of Lisbon’s city centre properties, pushing up rental prices, hollowing out communities and threatening its unique character. Now the city wants to bring the people who...