Steven Lukes is professor of politics and sociology at the London School of Economics, and at New York University. He has published a number of books, including Power: readings in social and political theory, Individualism, and a critical-historical study of Emile Durkheim.

Recent articles

The debate over the Iraq war’s legitimacy focused crucially on Saddam’s weapons programmes. One of the war’s most influential advocates has retracted his view of their threat. Does this make his original work an example of propaganda masquerading as scholarship?

Christopher Hitchens’ passionate call to arms is flawed. His attack caricatures the current peace movement and fails to see that war in Iraq could make things worse.

They call themselves realists, but for White House gurus this isn’t a war of equals, it is a battle between the master and the slaves.

The novel feature of the new terrorism is its religious character. The challenge this presents to democracy is a linguistic as well as a security one. For the imprecision of the language we use to address it – especially that of good and evil – carries the danger of internalising an anti-political threat to our values. To avoid this, we must both focus on the specific, and reaffirm the secular, public sphere as the common ground of democratic concern.

On day two of the post-disaster era, the lines of opinion are being drawn up across America. It’s impossible to say which way the mood will swing. But that the American way of life is now forever changed, is indisputable.