The Foundation for the People of the South Pacific International (FSPI) is a regional agency based in Suva. FSPI’s project V&C: Gardening Good Governance and Democracy in the Pacific (V&C) is the subject of this review. The main objective of V&C is to address threats to peace and sustainable development by fostering or ‘gardening’ civil...

Sharon Beder takes a look at the increasing use of 'strategic lawsuits against public participation', or SLAPPs, by corporations against individual citizens and groups for exercising their democratic rights.

Peter Andren, the independent federal member for Calare, attacks the excesses of parliamentary 'entitlements' employed in the pursuit of re-election. 'We have a system,' he writes, 'that delivers all representatives incredible privileges and power through incumbency.'

A consistent feature that connects terrorists of varying political motives and personality types is the existence of near universal feelings of anger, disempowerment, and frustration. Moreover, to the extent that the denial of human rights robs individuals of their dignity it constitutes a form of structural violence which threatens to intensify these feelings. It is...

The increasingly broad scope of international trade agreements has raised widespread concern about the implications for popular sovereignty. Internationally, most attention has been focused on the World Trade Organization. In Australia, the same issue has arisen in relation to the free trade agreement negotiated with the United States in January and recently ratified by the...