Stories Archive | Reset DOC

Analyses

Ramin Jahanbegloo, one of Irans preeminent intellectual figures, attends the conference ‘Peace, Democracy and Human Rights in Asia’ held under the auspices of former Czech president Vaclav Havel on September 11, 2009, in Prague. Other guests of this conference are Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, former President of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Frederik Willem de Klerk, Rabiya Kadeer, head of the World Uighur Congress, Robert Menard of France, former Secretary-General of Reporters Without Bord and others philosophers and disidents.AFP PHOTO MICHAL CIZEK (Photo by MICHAL CIZEK / AFP)

Rethinking the Liberal Tradition
Lea Ypi 31 October 2025

A key concept on which our understanding of democracy relies is freedom. Yet freedom has recently also become something of an embarrassment to the global Left, a notion more easily appropriated by the Right, in its defense of individual rights in contrast to shared social norms. I would like to reflect on what a robust idea of freedom for the Left might look like, and why it is necessary to recover it, rather than trying to do away with it. And I want to raise that question in a way that urges us to reflect on both micro-history and macro-history: how world historical events shape and constrain the lives of individuals who happen to be caught up in them, and how existing political institutions try and fail to promote certain moral ideals.
Political Theory
The Three Failures of Neoliberalism and Europe’s Democratic Renewal
Emanuele Felice 31 October 2025

Neoliberalism is a political ideology that, in its most “kindly” interpretation, places economic freedom at the center, as both the key and foundation for all other freedoms. Since the 1970s, it has taken shape through a set of principles, especially in economic policy, applied with varying degrees of intensity and consistency by nearly every country in the world.
Political Theory
Toward a Reparative Democracy
Wendy Brown 31 October 2025

With no clear vision for a lasting peace in Palestine, and private interests winding ever deeper into the fabric of public life, there appear to be no real bulwarks left to counter the dangers threatening our shared future. Liberal democracy no longer seems to possess the vitality needed to protect the very institutions that once sustained it. Between war and accelerating climate breakdown, how can we place people—rather than markets or power blocs—back at the center of democracy? Wendy Brown, of the Institute for Advanced Studies, spoke with Reset DOC about her idea of reparative democracy—a post-liberal vision for renewing democracy in the face of rising authoritarianism, ecological collapse, and the exhaustion of the liberal order.
Political Theory
As U.S. Hegemony Founders, can the E.U. Step up to the Plate?
Michele Salvati 31 October 2025

The democracies born in the last century are facing a deep crisis. Rivalries among factions of transnational capital and between states are reshaping the relationship between economics and politics in chaotic and unpredictable ways. As U.S. hegemony wavers, and Europe seeks greater autonomy, nationalism and authoritarian tendencies are resurfacing. In this unsettled landscape, the Left struggles to find a common voice, while new social and cultural energies are trying to imagine a future in which freedom is no longer a privilege of the market. On these issues, Reset DOC spoke with Michele Salvati, emeritus professor of Political Economy at the University of Milan.
Political Theory
Financial Wars and the New Global Disorder
Alessandro Volpi 31 October 2025

Given the current context of financial conflicts, it is essential to distinguish between the market—conceived as a mechanism for the fair and efficient allocation of resources—and capitalism, which, defined by its relentless pursuit of profit, has generated significant distortions in the “normal” functioning of the market and triggered a multi-level global tension, most notably in the financial sphere. The emergence of this new world, in which the two concepts have become entirely decoupled, began in December 2001. Twenty years after the Reagan administration’s decision to steer the world toward the liberalization of capital flows, Bill Clinton’s long-pursued project to integrate China into the international market—through its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO)—was finally realized.
Political Theory
The Broken Social Pact. Work, Time and New Forms of Citizenship
Marina Calloni 31 October 2025

The fracture in the historical bond between capitalism and democracy now seems evident. The connection that had held, albeit ambiguously, throughout the era of industrial capitalism and Fordist growth today appears to be definitively broken due to financial neoliberalism, the offshoring of production, and the crisis of democratic institutions.
International Affairs, Political Theory
The West is the Rest. The Liberal Order Turns Provincial
Carlo Galli 31 October 2025

Liberal democracy is a Western affair, not a global one. It was born and evolved in the West during the late modern era, grounded in cultural, economic, and social preconditions that cannot be reproduced elsewhere. Its export has often been an element of neocolonial ambition. The world knows well how to distinguish good governance from oppression, order from violent chaos, yet it neither thinks nor organizes itself democratically. Nor does it admire the democratic West or aspire to emulate it—except in the production of goods and services. Today, liberal democracy concerns scarcely one-eighth of the world’s population. Europe, the West (which are not the same thing, or at least have not always been), and democracy have long since been provincialized. The West is the rest.
Political Theory
Capitalism and Democracy
Fulvia Giachetti 31 October 2025

What is liberté? Freedom. What kind of freedom? The freedom to do whatever one wants within the limits of the law. When can one do whatever one wants? When one possesses a million. Does freedom allow everyone to have a million? No, it doesn’t. What is a person without a million? A person without a million is not someone who does whatever they want, but someone to whom others do whatever they want.” Thus wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky in 1862, upon returning from his first trip to Europe. In just a few lines, the Russian writer grasped a contradiction that would come to define all modern political thought: the promise of universal freedom versus the reality of a freedom distributed according to wealth. What at the time sounded like a moral provocation now returns as a historical diagnosis of the increasingly worn-out relationship between capitalism and democracy, one that fully embraces the crisis of liberalism and that of freedom.
International Affairs
Yuli Tamir: “Relying on Hamas Again is a Dangerous Illusion”
Alessandra Tommasi 17 October 2025

The ceasefire in Gaza tied to Donald Trump’s 20-point plan remains fragile, beset by violations and political tension. Tel Aviv threatens retaliation over the non-return of 19 hostage bodies, while Hamas accuses Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of deliberately delaying humanitarian aid convoys amid the rubble of Gaza. On paper, the Palestinian group has agreed to relinquish direct control of the enclave, but it has not accepted full disarmament or international oversight through Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace.” Meanwhile, the plan entirely omits the West Bank, deepening fears that Netanyahu’s government seeks to cement a “two Palestines” reality.
International Affairs
Trump’s Power Politics in Latin America Beyond Venezuela
Andre Diniz Pagliarini 16 October 2025

Donald Trump insists he wants no “new wars.” In Latin America, however, that line is wearing thin. His administration has revived the language and logic of forceful intervention even as he maintains that the era of U.S. adventurism abroad is over. The result is a foreign policy that races to prop up allies like Argentina’s Javier Milei and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro while threatening adversaries like Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro.