Benjamin Barber

Benjamin Barber, CUNY senior research scholar at the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, talks with Brian Lehrer about how cities are responding to global issues.

Political theorist and distinguished senior fellow at Demos, Benjamin Barber, responded to Brian's question which is at the center of the show's End of War series: Is war inevitable?

Benjamin Barber, political theorist and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the policy center Demos, discusses the relevance of Rousseau's political and social ideas today and the Occupy Rousseau event happening tonight. 

EVENT: Benjamin Barber participates in the Occupy Rousseau event at the New York Public Library on Friday, March 9 at 7 P.M.

Benjamin Barber, political theorist and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the policy center Demos, discusses reports that former Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi died of injuries sustained during his capture this morning in Sirte.

→ Add a Comment, Listen and Read a Recap at It's A Free Country

Benjamin Barber, political theorist and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the policy center Demos, talks about the 9th annual observation of September 12th as "Interdependence Day" with a focus on global unity.

EVENT: "World café"-style community discussions today at 3LD ART & TECHNOLOGY CENTER, 80 Greenwich St.

Benjamin Barber, Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos and former member of the International Board of the Saif Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation - until he resigned in protest at start of the uprising - discusses the prospects for democracy in a potential post- Qaddafi Libya.

Talks are underway in Qatar to try to establish a way forward for Libya, where fighting continues. Col. Gadhafi continues his attacks, while NATO has stepped in to help the rebel forces. NATO will remain in the country until the departure of Gadhafi. However, who will lead the country? Benjamin Barber is a senior fellow at Demos in New York and author of "Strong Democracy" and "Jihad vs. McWorld." He says that Gadhafi's son, Saif Gadhafi may need to play a role in the government. The BBC's Nick Childs reports on the meeting in Qatar.

Benjamin Barber, distinguished senior fellow at the New York think tank Demos and Walt Whitman Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Rutgers University, and Harry Binswanger, a longtime associate of Ayn Rand and a board member at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, talk about the principle of freedom, who it's for and from what, in advance of the First Principles debate.

As protests in Libya advance to wrestle power away from Moammar Gadhafi, attacks on demonstrators from helicopters and planes also continue. This has the international community left pondering what it can do. Many lawmakers are calling for a no-fly zone to be declared in Libya, but that may be easier said then done. To help us learn what exactly is a "no-fly zone," and if it actually works, is Joshua Keating, associate editor for Foreign Policy.

Benjamin Barber, internationally renowned political theorist and Distinguished Fellow at the policy center Demos, and a former member of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, discusses his resignation from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation and his take on the prospects for democracy in Libya.

→ Read a Recap and Join the Conversation at It's A Free Country

Guests today include: 

• Benjamin Barber, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the New York think tank Demos and Walt Whitman Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Rutgers University; 
• Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs magazine and former National Security Council official in the Clinton administration; 
• Simon Schama, University Professor of art history and history at Columbia whose work focuses on revolutions; 
• Mona Eltahawy, Egyptian New Yorker and columnist and public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues; 
• Jeff Goodwin, professor of sociology at NYU and author of No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991;
• Youssef M. Ibrahim, an Egyptian and a former New York Times Middle East and European correspondent who served as the paper's Tehran bureau chief in 1978-1979; 

As well as Shinasi A. Rama, deputy director of the NYU Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy and one of the leaders of the Albanian student movement; Suketu Mehta, New York City-based journalist, professor of journalism at NYU, and author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found; Neferti Tadiar, professor and chair of women's studies at Barnard College; Anne Nelson, adjunct associate professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University who's covered revolutions as a journalist in Central America; Omar Cheta, PhD candidate in the departments of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and History at NYU; Shiva Sarram, who was eight years old during the 1979 revolution in Iran and the founder of the Blossom Hill Foundation, which works with children affected by conflict.; Gladys Carbo-Flower, recording artist and witness to Cuba's revolution; Didi Ogude, a recent NYU graduate who was ten years old during South Africa's regime change in the nineties; Hesham El-Meligy, a Muslim-American community organizer from Staten Island; and Ali Al Sayed, Egyptian New Yorker and owner of Kabab Café in Little Egypt, Astoria, Queens.