Twitter bans political advertising. Is this a right step for democracy?
Category: Democracy
“Generations that come after us should also live well, not only survive”
Interview with Lucie Hammecke (22), member of the state parliament of Saxony.
The First and Last Level of Political Resistance: an Europe of municipalities or municipalities of Europe?
There seems not to be many promising scenarios on the near future for progressive policies. From Spain to Hungary, the right, in all its forms, has the power of member states. In such a situation, where transnational financial elites are re-founding neoliberalism using new faces such Macron or old ideologies such Le Pen’s, how can…
Measuring Spanish democracy
Democracy can be measured, and there is no bipolar difference between democracy and dictatorship. We can find characteristics of democracy in an authoritarian regime, and characteristics of authoritarianism in a democratic one. Thanks to the work of political scientist Robert Dahl, who considered democracy to be an incomplete path, we have different criteria to determine…
To abstain or not to abstain?
This question is accompanying me since the first day of my Tour de France. I heard it in Strasbourg, Lyon, Grenoble, Toulouse, Marseille and Rennes, in the back of a bus, in the supermarket as well as on demonstrations, my interviews with politicians and late at night in leftist bars. In the beginning, it was…
Meet Nils: On the Trail in France for the Presidential Elections
I’m Nils, a young European German Francophile. After living a year in France for Erasmus and an Internship, learning the language, being active at Les Jeunes Écologistes (French Young Greens) and making new French friends, I still have a problem: I don’t understand “The French”! How can a country with such a revolutionary potential, such…
Looking Back at the Campaign
June 2016: there will be elections in nine months. DWARS’s freshly formed campaign team holds their first meeting. What are we going to do during the next three-quarter year and how? Before we started this, I had promised to bring a pie. ‘But,’ I said, ‘not without a reason. We need to have achieved something.’…
A Day in the Life of a Dutch Green Campaign Manager
Today Marije Ploeg has the floor. She is campaign manager at the GroenLinks (GreenLeft) department in The Hague. Before, she was the campaign manager in Arnhem, and she has been in the United States for a while and joined the BKB-academy to follow intensive courses about campaigning. She will tell us what she has learned…
Hitting the campaign trail with DWARS
It all began at the largest GA in the history of the Dutch Greens: one inspiring day which energized me intensely. And so, I offered my services to an enthusiastic volunteer, so as to actively contribute to the party campaign. By Skip Anker, a DWARS-member campaigning for the first time My first goal: go to…
Modern campaigning: Grassroots and apps
Let’s temporarily step away from the cynicism. Stop believing that people no longer take to the streets, or are unwilling to contribute through more than ‘clicktivism’; stop believing that time is long gone. Let’s blindly trust people DO want to roll up their sleeves and get to work. What kind of campaign would you set…