Category: democracy

Posted on

Splendid Isolation Iceland

In international politics the term “splendid isolation” refers to the British diplomacy of the 19th century to keep Great Britain out of the power struggles across Europe and as a separate force. Maybe the Brexit in the 21st century can be figured in terms of  a return to the ideal of a splendid isolation, despite the close economic links and joint democratic heritage since the 2WW.
Iceland had a referendum on opening EU-accession talks which it dismissed by 53% against to 47% in favor. As with the Brexit vote, countries rarely vote similar in all regions. Therefore, it is no surprise that an even larger majority of the population of Reykjavik voted in favor, but the 2/3 of the population living in rural areas, many related to the fishing industries, rejected the prospects of EU-integration. As a member of the EEA Iceland is already part of the more economic aspects of the EU, but a strong isolationist and independent diplomatic stance dominated. Sometimes it takes a generational change before the prospects for younger generations are taken into account in politics.

splendid-isolation-in-Paris-2026-10
splendid-isolation-in-Paris-2026-10
Posted on

Systems of thinking

The translation of the title of the “chair” created for Michel Foucault at the “College de France” sounds rather all encompassing. He worked during the years 1970-1984 at the institute, which were particularly innovative in terms of new concepts to look at society. With the massive protests of students in the streets of Paris in 2026-10, the exhibition of Foucault’s life course, his major contributions, legacy and audio-visual material are presented in a small exhibition. Foucault was one of the social scientists who had a research interest in the student protests of 1968 already.
In the exhibition it is possible to inspect central pages of the hand-written originals of some of his lectures. In the late 60s and 70s tape recording became feasible and such recordings helped to spread his ideas quickly. As Foucault was a master of contextualisation of societal procedures, like for example imprisonment, the curators of the exhibition present a few samples of Foucault’s own library (image below) and examples of correspondence with his network of social scientists, like Roland Barthes or Raymond Aron. In 2026 the thoughts on “gouvernementalité” (own translation “governability”) still speak to current politics. That is a great half-life-value of social thought.

Examples of Foucault book collection at his home College de France 2026
Examples of Foucault book collection at his home College de France 2026
Posted on

Book fair hope

The Frankfurt book fair attracted 236.000 visitors in 2026, similar to the previous year. There have been about 50% professionals and 50% general interest audiences. The busy times on the fair are marked by about 4000 exhibitors and 3800 events. Great efforts have been made to facilitate circulation on the fair to quickly move between country pavilions and events on stages across the whole area. In times of pervasive online content provision, the face-to-face meeting of authors and audiences as well professional book traders and related professionals remains an important event. With broad media coverage, the event remains a hallmark for any democratic society. Keep thinking big.

Frankfurt book fair 2026
Frankfurt book fair 2026
Posted on

Intergenerational peace

Law and courts serve the function of appeasement beyond the role of delivering judgements. Particularly in the realm of the International Court of Justice the dealing with crimes against humanity and their prosecution is hindered by lack of broad recognition and its force of implementation. Therefore, the international system of jurisdiction has to be explained over and over again to distance the practice of International criminal law and of justice implemented by who has won a war. Philippe Sands was awarded the peace prize of the German book trade association 2026-10. For some time already, he has become a major personality to explain and thereby defend the international criminal law by means of embedding international law into his fact-driven accounts of crimes against humanity. Since the Nuremberg trials to judge Nazi-terror, the task to continue to explain the horrors and atrocities in all emotions merits the broadest attention. The threats to humanity continue also in Europe and the voices of outspoken defenders of intergenerational peace on earth are dearly needed. (Image: extract of The last judgement by Jean Bellegambe 1520 Gemäldegalerie Berlin) 

extract of The last judgement by Jean Bellegambe 1520 Gemäldegalerie Berlin
extract of The last judgement by Jean Bellegambe 1520 Gemäldegalerie Berlin
Posted on

Self-publishing as resistance

Self-publishing has been the title of a historical account of the Czech publishing since the Nazi occupation of Czechia since 1939 (mfk-frankfurt.de). Forced into exile or clandestine underground publishing, many publishers and authors had no other option than to go it by themselves. The underground press during the Soviet union dominated communist rule in Czechia had to rely on similar methods, since censorship as well as persecution were a consequence of illegal writing and publishing activities. In the 21st century self-publishing has become much easier, but the persecution even beyond national borders continues to be a threat in many parts of the world.
Platforms that enable a visibility beyond publishing houses and institutional support broaden the scope for authors to reach various audiences as part of  democracy’s vitality and preparedness. Who knows about the grip on publishing of authoritarian and autocratic regimes in advance and their thirst to curb alternative opinions? Historical evidence points to the need to have self-publishing and publishing in exile as an important additional defence mechanism of democracies (Image: Czechia pavilion at Frankfurt book fair 2026)

Czechia pavilion Frankfurt book fair publishing 2026
Czechia pavilion Frankfurt book fair publishing 2026
Posted on

Hybrid publishing threat

For decades there have been strong initiatives which defended the freedom of expression. Historically, the press and book publishing have a pretty long track record. The IPA Freedom of Expression Defenders Award has been inaugurated at the Frankfurt book fair #fbm26 on 2026-10-8 with much acclaim. The challenges of the freedom to publish are on the rise again as many countries tackle these freedoms as part of the rise of authoritarian governance. Democratic countries, however, have to live up to the challenges that publishing, as part of the whole media world, has been included into a kind of hybrid way of influencing and even hybrid warfare. AI is a dangerous 2-sided sword in this endeavor as well. The publishing sector starts to address the issue, but finding a consensus seems rather time consuming. Foster alliances before it is too late to regulate, build and strengthen defenses. 

IPA award 2026

 

Posted on

More about books

The Frankfurt book fair opens its books and doors on 2026-10-7. The thousands of authors, publishers, translaters and agents are quite concerned about the amount of infringements that AI has brought to the industry. The market is under increasing pressure to secure intellectual property rights and copyright protections. A flood of AI-produced books shall ruin margins out of which authors are paid as well. The spreading of ideas in form of books across borders is threatened. Sebastian Guggolz from the German book trade association claimed even a double theft, first the books, then the ideas by AI. In order to counteract this, the Frankfurt book fair is continuously expanding is function as a platform of exchange of ideas (Juergen Boos) and face-to-face meetings of all involved in writing, editing, producing, trading, teaching and discussing books in the broadest sense. This discourse about books is the real human added value which AI is lacking so far. In this sense of talking about books, books become a kind of merchandising product of an event or a form of take-home-message to participants. A great and promising forward looking agenda for us rather than the retro-captive approach of AI. 

Frankfurt book fair 2026-10-6 press conference

Posted on

Gaps in Mirror

The legendary figure of “Till Eulenspiegel” (name is a composition of “owl” and “mirror”) is still attracting attention, largely because of his way to reach and sometimes expose ordinary anomalies. We have mirrors all around us, as well as explicit historical details, but we tend to overlook or create voluntarily gaps into mirrored images of the past and their reflections into the present. The novel “The Gaps” (Die Lücken) by Shida Bazyar exemplifies, why dealing with history on a local level is of utmost importance for societies to be aware, deal and transmit fundamental human values. Till Eulenspiegel of the 21st century has a migration background and experience of care work, 2 fields at the cutting edge of humanity. Dealing with the gaps in narratives of locals enters visually into the novel as well. We ar caught t “automatic lly” read ov r the g__s before we realize how huge the gaps in narratives and our mirrors of the past can be. The novel is a great reminder to actively deal with our own gaps. Check the mirrors as well, there might be gaps that blur images of the past.

Posted on

Agentrification

If you believe that AI-agents are continuously robbing your webpage content, then you will suffer from “Agentrification”. We know about the mental disease of “persecutory delusions” for quite some time. In the realm of webpage analytics a somehow related phenomenon might be the experience, also probably more a delusion, of “agentrification”. Even when you are on holidays, the AI-agents keep working on scraping content of your webpage everyday. If necessary or driven by info requests, this might be several times per day.
There are monitoring tools for this, just like other home security devices. The Plug-In “Known Agents” (extract of image below) does a great job in making such activities more transparent. Humans are reluctant to use AI-provided links to content, but tend to be satisfied with the agent’s fast return. However, checking sources should be a safeguard not to fall into the trap of another kind of agentrification, which is de-skilling due to ample use of AI-returns rather than direct search of information or checking provided links by AI for their trustworthiness.

Posted on

Dream Peace

To dream about peace is as old as humanity. However, the people who work on the development of weapons and train to use them vastly outnumbers those who think or dream up peace. The strategies and advice about warfare ranging from Aurel to Clausewitz have been studied carefully and the short-cut summary “if you want peace, prepare for war” sounds like a plausible solution to many problematic war-like situations (hybrid wars) even today. Let’s give it a try and dream up peace. There exits already an extensive literature on peace-keeping (forces) an the difficult role of the UN in these efforts. How about a challenge to this conventional wisdom. Voting in the UN should be weighted. The weights are inverse-proportional to a country’s amount of production and trade in arms measured over the last 10, 50, 100, 251 or 2501 years. The probability to favour peace in such a reformed voting system of the UN would shift further peace rather than arms trade and use of weapons in conflict. Of course, a crucial point is the definition of what is a weapon. Hybrid war and dual-use technologies could undermine the new balance of power at the UN. If countries with no arms production and arms trade get the upper hand at the UN decision-making, the peace-keeping force could still be mandated and delegated to joint forces. This could work as a disincentive for Trump to try to sell arms and enter into large-scale arms trade between the US and China. (Image: Ikarus-by-Picasso-at-UNESCO-headquarters-2024-Paris).

Ikarus-by-Picasso-at-UNESCO-headquarters-2024-Paris.jpeg