NLR 76

articles
Cihan TuğalDemocratic Janissaries?

Turkey has been hailed in the West as a democratic model for the Islamic world. Cihan Tuğal takes a cool look at the Erdoğan government’s domestic and foreign-policy record, from ‘zero problems’ diplomacy to the blockade of Libya and dirty war on Damascus, airstrikes on Turkish Kurds and silence on Bahrain.

Wolfgang StreeckCitizens as Customers

Post-Fordist capitalism has transformed consumers’ expectations, offering limitless diversification of commodities. Wolfgang Streeck explores the implications for a public sphere which cannot hope to match the cornucopia of the market. The consumption of politics by the politics of consumption?

Jan BremanThe Undercities of Karachi

Pakistan’s turbulent metropolis as battleground for gangsters and politicians, and the iniquitous rural order that propels impoverished haris to its slums.

obituary
Robin BlackburnAlexander Cockburn, 1941–2012

A tribute to Alexander Cockburn—director of CounterPunch, Marxian environmentalist, long-standing editor of New Left Review. Robin Blackburn traces his path from County Cork to Soho, Havana to Manhattan, the Florida Keys to California’s Lost Coast.

articles
Alexander CockburnDispatches

Reports from Paris and Moscow on the bicentenary of 1789 and dissolution of the USSR—mitterandistes hailing the Girondins as forerunners of themselves, while Yeltsin thanks George Bush for his support—and lethal advice for Western foreign correspondents.

Yiannis MavrisGreece’s Austerity Election

Social and demographic analysis of the May and June 2012 polls, as the country reels under EU structural adjustment. Narrow basis of Samaras’s ‘national’ government, DIMAR’s defection and emergence of SYRIZA as a new force on the left.

José Carlos AvellarThe Three-Headed Horse

Echoes and parallels between the work of Eisenstein, Picasso and Orozco in the late 1930s. The recurring spectres of war, conquest and destruction stalking the world from Moscow to Guadalajara to Guernica, travelling back and forth between film, wall and canvas.

reviews
Dialectic of Dionysus

Sven Lütticken on Asger Jorn, Fraternité Avant Tout. The Danish artist and Situationist wrestles with Engels and Nietzsche.

Sino-Seismology

Joel Andreas on Martin King Whyte, Myth of the Social Volcano. Empirical survey of attitudes to inequality in the PRC, offering comfort for Beijing.

Bernstein’s Heirs

Dylan Riley on Sheri Berman, The Primacy of Politics and Ashley Lavelle, The Death of Social Democracy. Conflicting assessments of Bernstein’s legatees and the future of a reformist left.

Paper Empires

Emilie Bickerton on Thierry Discepolo, La Trahison des éditeurs. The Hexagon’s ‘quality’ book trade skewered by a leading radical publisher.