The Leaderless Revolution – How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century (Carne Ross, Simon & Schuster, 2011)

Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere – The New Global Revolutions (Paul Mason, Verso, 2012)

(Reviewed for International Affairs) Frequently described as a “high flying former diplomat”, Carne Ross resigned from the Foreign Office over the Iraq War. Being so close to mechanisms of power provided him with an understanding which ultimately shook his belief in our national and international systems of government. Indeed the author admits that he does not come up with his arguments ‘by way of academic study, or historical research. I know this because I once did it’. Ross’s earlier work, ‘Independent Diplomat’, was an exorcism of his institutional past while his latest effort is a far more ambitious attempt to outline a better future for global governance.

Ross, now running his own diplomatic consultancy, has transformed into a thinking man’s neo-anarchist whose book outlines both the failures of representative democracy in the era of globalisation and ways in which empowered individuals can succeed in the future. The author’s central point revolves around the failure of institutions to meet peoples aspirations. While global surveys confirm that while people prefer democracy, as Ross puts it ‘they are less and less happy with the practice of democratic government’. The nation state represents an archaic and ill fitting answer to multifaceted non-localised issues, brought on by the pressures of globalisation and climate change. From flu-epidemics, to the spread of rioting, he carefully plots the ways in which our interconnectedness has led to problems which require global cooperation to solve. Yet the best efforts at multilateral cooperation have yet to deliver the answers. Ross parallels the enormous rhetoric of the 2005 G8’s promise to ‘make poverty history’ with the reality of its ‘utter failure’ to do so with a shortfall in pledges of $20 billion.

(Huffington Post) Four days after the official US troop presence ended, Baghdad has been struck by bombings that are a reminder that for ordinary Iraqis the horror continues.

Soft, unprotected civilian targets were hit by co-ordinated, simultaneous attacks that were likely planned prior to Shi’a Prime Minister Maliki’s Monday decision to order the arrest of Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi. The Western press has focused on the potential for larger sectarian bloodletting, the reality is that this bombing fits into a fairly predictable pattern of violence that has been largely ignored by the media. Indeed the average monthly death toll in Iraq exceeds 300 and kidnappings, bombings and shootings are daily occurrences.

The Iraqi security forces are now some 650,000 strong and according to US military trainers becoming more competent by the day. With this in mind a combination of manpower, equipment and checkpoints (in addition to reconciliation efforts that I will come onto) have reduced the frequency of attacks against religious sites and ceremonies, government institutions and in particular against the security forces themselves.

Huffington Post - Bashar al-Assad is the man most likely to bring down his own regime. Why? Because if we trace back both the president's reaction to the protests in addition to his previous ten years in charge, we can see that his attempts at reforms have unwittingly creating the environment in which challenges to the regime continue to flourish.

Assad has undermined the bedrock of his father's coup-proof state by marginalizing the old guard, introducing communications technology and the internet to the country, reducing funding to the military, removing the local power of Baath party committees and the unions, and, in the pursuing his version of the 'Chinese model' of economic reform, exacerbating class differences and forcing large sections of Syrian society to rely on more traditional tribal and sectarian networks.

(Huffington Post) I was recently fortunate enough to visit the sprawling Rocinha favela, one of the largest in Rio, which sits on a stunning hillside in a cove overlooking the Atlantic about a ten minutes drive from Ipanema beach. The Rio Favelas are synonymous in popular fiction with crime and violence, from the epic City of God to the episodes in Modern Warfarethat place the gamer in charge of shooting their way out of the dense and mazelike warren of houses.

As with the slums in Mumbai, the ethics of whether or not to visit the favelas are hotly contested. One of our guides, a friend who has lived and worked in Rocinha for the past year producing a film, spoke of the gaggles of tourists who arrive on organized trips from their hostels to rush through the central street and gawp at the heavily armed traficos that until recently held sovereignty over the population estimated at between 150-300,000 people.

Yet times in Brazil are changing, as the B in the BRIC economies charges up the table of the world's richest countries (it is now 8th) and looks forward to hosting the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics one year later. The favelas are not immune to this transition and according to the UN study "State of the World Cities 2010/2011" Brazil has reduced its favela shantytown population by 16 percent in the last decade, with "an improvement in the living standards of 10.5 million Brazilians." According to the study, the poor living in favelas went down from 31.5 to 26.4 percent of the population.