Committed to democracy, pluralism, and fundamental rights.
The Political Crow is a Free Corner on the wide Web, founded in 2025 with the goal of promoting the values of Democracy.
João Ferreira Dias
PhD & Founder
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Cultural Appropriation: Who Uses, Owns? Controversial Ideas on Cultural Ownership
Cultural appropriation is one of the central post-material battlegrounds of the contemporary world. It mobilizes questions of identity and culture, while often overlooking a foundational principle of culture itself: hybridity. At its core, the concept of cultural appropriation refers to the use of cultural elements—symbols, clothing, hairstyles, cuisine, religion—originating from a minority group by members…
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The Contemporary Relevance of the Marxist Theory of Dependency
The Marxist Theory of Dependency (MTD), as developed by authors such as Ruy Mauro Marini, Vânia Bambirra, and Theotonio dos Santos, remains an essential analytical tool for understanding the structural dynamics of underdevelopment, domination, and imperialism in the Latin American context, particularly in Brazil. Far from being an obsolete theoretical framework limited to the debates…
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The Virtues of Presidentialism Against Parliamentarist Interference
Parliamentarism, like an unburied ghost, cyclically returns to Brazilian public debate, presenting itself in times of institutional crisis as a magical solution to national political impasses. Such a proposal invariably resurfaces in new garments. Yet, as in the past, it promises stability, rationality, and crisis containment. However, behind this technical and modernizing veneer lies a…
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The Idea of Europe is Dying—and Nobody is Noticing
“Wherever coffee is served with a certain elegance, there exists an idea of Europe.”— George Steiner Eighty years after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Europe finds itself again in a moment of reckoning. What was once celebrated as the “end of history” now seems like a fragile interlude between disasters. In cafes from Lisbon to Krakow,…
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Lightning in a Clear Sky: Bolsonarism in Brazilian Political Thought
Although Bolsonarism presents itself as a legitimate expression of Brazilian national political aspiration — frequently wrapped in patriotic rhetoric and appeals to tradition — a deeper investigation into its ideological foundations reveals a troubling absence of organic continuity with any established political current within Brazil’s historical development. Unlike other movements that emerged as outgrowths of…
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Are There Lessons for Democracy in Budapest’s Pride March?
The path Viktor Orbán took from liberal democracy to democratic illiberalism was neither abrupt nor improvised. It was a cold and calculated march—along the ground cleared by the political merits of populism and the rising tide of illiberal values that Orbán anticipated and, by embracing, helped consolidate. Broadly and clearly, democratic illiberalism rests on a…
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It’s time for Burka: radical right is creating a ‘political fact’ in Portugal
Law often lags behind reality. This is a well-known maxim in legal theory: laws emerge, for better or worse, as responses to new and evolving social challenges. Politics, too, is meant to offer such responses—through negotiation among competing forces in search of what has been called “common ground.” However, the rise of populist and demagogic…
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Portugal & Cultural Relativism
The reasons behind polarization are well known, and the literature has extensively documented them. They range from divergent social rhythms across regions of the West—even within countries, as seen in the contrast between urban America and the rural Midwest—with tensions between progressivism and a conservative cultural backlash around moral issues (the so-called culture wars), such…
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Trump: Impeachment or the Illiberal Impossibility of Toppling Narcissus
After the forced invocation of the concept of “rebellion” to deploy troops to parts of California—politicizing a legal mechanism (Title 10; Section 12406 of the U.S. Code) for symbolic purposes, as a display of personal strength and a statement on the alleged “incompetence” of California Governor Gavin Newsom—in a dual maneuver of federal intimidation and…
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