Written by Yavor Tarinski Housing is absolutely essential to human flourishing. Without stable shelter, it all falls apart. ~Matthew Desmond[1] The issue of housing is of fundamental importance that has a direct connection, among other basic rights, to democratic participation. Despite that (or because of it) it is being contested by capitalist forces worldwide. Capitalist […]
Read More Right to housing and its relation to democracy
Written by Marco Deriu from the Department of Political and Social Studies of the University of Parma. Originally published in the journal Futures, Volume 44, Issue 6, August 2012, Pages 553-561. The debate surrounding the theme of democracy and degrowth covers many different questions from the reflections on sustainability and ecological democracy, to the discussion […]
Read More Democracies with a future: Degrowth and the democratic tradition
A Report of the People’s Assemblies Forum held in the Mathare Social Justice Centre’s Creative Hub on August 11, 2023. Cross-posted from the Mathare Social Justice Center. Why People’s Assemblies? The people’s assemblies arise from the need of the people to administer and generate solutions to the problems ailing their society. The concept is a people’s […]
Read More Tackling Social Injustice in Kenya with People’s Assemblies?
Written by Yavor Tarinski [C]itizens today no longer even approximate the high and eminently human standard of citizenship that was established in the Hellenic world—a meaning that must be recovered, as well as the personal and social training, or paideia, for producing citizens. ~Murray Bookchin[1] Often, when people advocate for the reinvigoration of citizenship in […]
Read More From citizens of nations to citizens of cities
Written by Yavor Tarinski We don’t aim to seize colonial state power but to abolish it. We seek nothing but total liberation. ~Indigenous Action[1] Colonialism is still an issue today, as patterns of colonial exploitation continue in different parts of the world. Although the form might have changed, it is nonetheless still there. But the […]
Read More Anti-colonialism and direct democracy
Written by Yavor Tarinski A vote, even a free vote, may be only – and often is only – a parody of democracy. Democracy is not the right to vote on secondary issues. Real [democracy] lies in being able to decide for oneself on all essential questions in full knowledge of the relevant facts. ~Cornelius […]
Read More On why Referendums aren’t synonymous with Direct Democracy
Written by Janet Biehl Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) understood earlier than almost anyone that an ecological crisis was not only looming but posted a challenge to capitalism and the whole social order. In the 1950s and 1960s, before most people even knew what ecology was, he was proposing fundamental solutions. Being ahead of his time, however, meant that his ideas were either ignored […]
Read More Murray Bookchin: The man who brought radical ecology and assembly democracy into the Left
We present to you the new publication from TRISE, entitled Asking questions with the Zapatistas: Reflections from Greece on our Civilizational Impasse, authored by TRISE members Theodoros Karyotis, Ioanna-Maria Maravelidi, and Yavor Tarinski. Editor: Matthew Little | Cover: Apollon Petropoulos | Design: George Chelebiev Publisher: Transnational Institute of Social Ecology (TRISE) | Year: 2022 […]
Read More “Asking questions with the Zapatistas” (e-book)
Deep Commons Conference 2022 – Call for Abstracts Link to conference webpage: https://www.deepcommons.net/conference This event will take place online from October 27th to 29th – hosted by the Department of Government and Politics, University College Cork, Ireland, in association with La Terre Institute for Community and Ecology, Mississippi, USA. Conference Theme: Cultivating Ecologies of Solidarity […]
Read More Announcing the Call for Papers of the Deep Commons Conference 2022
Written by Yavor Tarinski To take no part in the running of the community’s affairs is to be either a beast or a god! ~Aristotle[1] When exploring social change, one has to examine all aspects of it. Developing strategies and institutions that will help facilitate the coming into being and functioning of a democratic and […]
Read More Re-Embedding Citizenship in Revolutionary Politics