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Civil Society – the 3rd edition is out at last!

By Mike On June 3, 2014 · Add Comment
Every five years I revise the book on Civil Society I originally published with Polity Press in 2004. It’s Groundhog Day again, and the third edition of the book comes out this week. It has lots of new and updated material, including the role of social media and social enterprise, different trends in philanthropy, the Arab Spring and much else besides. I hope you’ll give it a try and recommend it to your friends and colleagues. To purchase the book in the USA click here. And in the UK click here. And in Canada click here. Here’s [...]
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When is civil society a force for social transformation?

By Mike On June 3, 2014 · Add Comment
There are more civil society organizations in the world today than at any other time in history, so why isn’t their impact growing? When you look at the numbers, the growth of civil society has been remarkable: 3.3 million charities in India and 1.5 million across the United States; NGOs like the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee that work with hundreds of millions of people; 81,000 international NGOs and networks, 90 per cent of them launched since 1975. That’s not counting all the street protests, social movements and informal community groups that are often omitted from the data. In [...]
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It’s time to put money out of its misery

By Mike On March 28, 2014 · Add Comment
Why are discussions about poverty so often held in luxurious surroundings? Perhaps it’s easier to think that way, without any poor people in the room to muddy the proceedings. Think Bellagio, for example, the Rockefeller Foundation’s villa on Lake Como, or Pocantico Hills in upstate New York (another Rockefeller bequest), or Schloss Leopoldskron, the baroque palace that houses the Salzburg Global Seminars where I found myself last week. The subject of the seminar was “value(s) for money,” a play on words that was designed to question the current fascination with ‘cost-effective impact’ [...]
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Money: in terms of social change, it’s both ‘beauty and the beast’

By Mike On February 27, 2014 · Add Comment
Is money a curse or a cure in relation to injustice and inequality? Welcome to a provocative new series on the role of money in the transformation of society. Philip Larkin’s poetry entered my consciousness during Britain’s “winter of discontent” in 1978, a grim time for those who remember it. Strikes by refuse collectors, nurses and workers in electricity plants brought the country to a halt. Things were so bad that even the gravediggers went on strike.Read more…
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Freedom, friction and the future of knowledge for social change

By Mike On February 27, 2014 · Add Comment
How can knowledge play a more useful role in the struggle for social justice? Late last year, the Coady International Institute in Canada asked me to address this question in a talk delivered during a conference organized with the International Development Research Center. The talk was filmed by Coady and a couple of local TV stations, and streamed online. Here’s the Youtube version:
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Who’s afraid of partisan politics?

By Mike On February 20, 2014 · Add Comment
At a time when Americans can only agree on how divided they’ve become, it’s no surprise that politicians who promote a bi-partisan approach are singled out for praise. Step forward Ohio Governor John Kasich, for example, a Republican who expanded Medicaid to 275,000 people under ‘Obamacare’ in October of 2013. “Nowhere in life do we not compromise” he told the New York Times. Or how about Ron Unz, the publisher of the American Conservative who also wants to raise the minimum wage in California to the highest in the USA? The message is clear: partisan politics is the problem, and working [...]
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Has Tim Ryan lost his mind?

By Mike On February 10, 2014 · Add Comment
The movement for “mindfulness meditation” is growing, but can it break the modern political gridlock? An interview with Tim Ryan, the US Congressman who wants a “quiet revolution” in America. With bills on immigration, gun control and balancing the budget currently stalled in Congress, many Americans would try anything to unfreeze the US political logjam, from magic mushrooms to Punxsutawney Phil Sowerby,“the world’s most famous prognosticating rodent”. Congressman Tim Ryan’s solution is more conventional: he wants everyone to develop greater “mindfulness”, through simple forms of meditation and other practices that focus our attention and help us listen [...]
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“Love 2.0:” a conversation with Barbara Fredrickson

By Mike On January 27, 2014 · Add Comment
Is there any scientific basis for believing that love can be a force for change in politics and economics? An interview with one of the world’s leading authorities on positive psychology and the value of “micro-moments of connection.” Can love be a positive force for change in the public sphere as well as in our private lives? If not, Transformation is in trouble: openDemocracy’s new section has staked its future on demonstrating that radical changes are possible in politics and economics when approached in a spirit of human connection and solidarity. Read more…
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Welcome to Transformation

By Mike On July 4, 2013 · Add Comment
Can fusing personal and social change radically transform our societies? We say yes. Michael Edwards introduces openDemocracy’s new section: Transformation. On a winter’s night in 1955, a young preacher named Martin Luther King climbed into the pulpit of the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Once there, he delivered a speech to a packed crowd of close to five thousand people that would eventually lead to his own assassination, but breathe new life into the struggle to transform America and the world. Read more…
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Beauty and the Beast: Can Money Ever Foster Social Transformation?

By Mike On June 27, 2013 · Add Comment
In relation to development and social change, money is both a curse and a cure, both “beauty and the beast.” Financial resources are essential to the functioning of most programs, policies and institutions, and they can help to make great things happen. Yet inevitably, money also raises questions about inequality, the strings attached to funding, and the power of those who hold them to push resources to causes they approve of, perhaps even weakening or corrupting authentic social action in the process. So how can money help to foster social transformation? Read or download the full paper here.
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