From Democratiya to Dissent  

The online journal Democratiya launched in 2005. Sixteen issues, one book, and a quarter-million readers later, Democratiya is being incorporated into Dissent. Why? Well, when Dwight Macdonald closed Politics, his “one-man magazine,” in 1949, he cited the relentless demands of …



The Reckless Mind of Slavoj Žižek  

In Defense of Lost Causes by Slavoj Žižek Verso, 2008, 504 pp., $34.95 In a stream of writings and talks since 1989, the Slovenian social theorist Slavoj Žižek has blended Lacanian psychoanalysis and Hegelian philosophy with film criticism, cultural studies, …



How to Win a Cosmic War: An Interview with Reza Aslan  

Reza Aslan is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University of California, Riverside and research associate at the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute …



Editor’s Page  

Does the two-state solution remain viable after the conflict in Gaza, and if so what are the obstacles to its realisation? We posed these questions to a range of writers. Michael Walzer argues that two states is in bad shape, …









Editor’s Page  

On the third anniversary of the launch of Democratiya, Dissent co-editor Michael Walzer writes on the ‘two commitments’ that ‘give shape to the Democratiya project.’ ‘The first,’ he writes, ‘is to defend and promote a left politics that is liberal, …