We are not alone in the universe

A new type of political ecology may lend the Left a broad political platform. But we must first acknowledge wills that are not human. Jonathan Metzger explains why "more-than-humanism" calls for a complete rethink in policy, planning and the law. [more]

Democratic revolution, bourgeois revolution, Arab revolution

The political economy of a possible success

If the democratic revolutions are to succeed in the Maghreb and Middle East, these nations must find a way of copying East Asia's economic success, argues Hartmut Elsenhans. The central element is access to the economic fundamentals that will allow citizens to become true democrats. [more]

Anger at Kohl

Franz Josef Strauss and other once controversial political figures of the old Federal Republic of Germany no longer arouse much emotion in erstwhile colleagues and observers. But Helmut Kohl is a very different story, writes Berthold Franke. [more]

Markets and society

When high finance cripples the economy and corrodes democracy

The current financial crisis is not confined to economies, writes former Romanian finance minister Daniel Daianu. The erosion of the middle class, the spread of extremism and the threat to democracy are some of the more obvious social effects demanding attention. [Danish version added] [more]

War in Europe? Not so impossible

The dark warnings of the Polish finance minister about the prospect of war in Europe if the crisis deepens were met with scepticism. But there is no call for complacency about where current, nationalist tendencies might lead, writes the editor of "Adevarul Europa". [Danish version added] [more]

We are more!

There urgently needs to be an increase on the 0.05 per cent available in the current EU budget for funding cultural experimentation around common European concerns. The "We are more!" campaign wants to see this deficit corrected in the next EU budget from 2014 to 2020. [more]

The taste of grass

Is the return of Serbian nationalism to be dismissed as domestic political point-scoring in an election year, or does it pose a deeper threat to the region? And will Russia step in as the rift with the EU over Kosovo deepens? Slavenka Drakulic considers the possibilities. [more]

To name the unnameable

Salman Rushdie had to back out of attending the 2012 Jaipur Literature Festival because of an assassination threat against him. The lack of support for Rushdie shows that the defence of free speech is no longer seen as an irrevocable duty, writes Kenan Malik. [more]

Europe's narrative bias

Democracy, humanism and diversity have little to do with a "European inheritance". Yet EU cultural policy instrumentalizes cultural heritage to promote common identity. This narrative bias needs to be challenged, says Erik Hammar. [more]

The organized upperworld

"Osteuropa" analyses Hungarian politics in upheaval; the "Dublin Review of Books" says together, small EU-states are strong; "Reset" asks Napolitano what Einaudi would have done; "Le Monde diplomatique" (Oslo) goes deep into debt; "dérive" inspects the foundations of Red Vienna; "Esprit" says home-owning is not the solution to the French housing crisis; and "Studija" urges western art critics to get past Cold War clichés. [more]

Towards an illiberal democracy

Hungary's new constitution

Hungary's new constitution contradicts European standards on numerous counts: it sets in stone government policy; it is biased towards "ethnic" Hungarians; and it undermines the independence of regulatory institutions including the constitutional court and media. [more]

The decline of democracy -- the rise of dictatorship

An appeal

In a "New Year's appeal", thirteen intellectuals and public figures who opposed Hungary's communist regime in the 1970s outline their concerns about Hungary's new constitution and call on Europe to help halt a slide towards a new dictatorship. [more]

Drawing borders within borders

Abortion is still illegal in a number of EU countries and LGBT people are publicly harassed. The conservatives of Europe favour policies that limit sexual and reproductive freedom. What are progressives doing about this? asks Anna Hellgren. [more]

Get smart

Ireland and the euro crisis

Ireland, like other small EU member-states, must be especially smart in responding to the euro crisis, since it does not command the resources that better enable larger states to protect their interests. How coherent has the Irish approach been so far and are the alternatives more convincing? [more]

New Eurozine Associate: Dublin Review of Books

The "Dublin Review of Books" has joined the Eurozine network. A free online journal of ideas, the DRB publishes review-essays on Irish questions as well as issues of Europe's literary and cultural heritage and the future of its institutions and forms of government. [more]

Whose Europe?

The euro will be brought down by a European Tea Party-type movement, predicts Björn Elmbrant. But the EU has a role to play beyond the euro. Instead of a neoliberal politics of austerity we need a Marshall plan for Greece, Ireland and Portugal. [more]

In search of a post-communist future

How was it possible in too many post-communist countries that incredible riches accumulated in the hands of the parasitic few? Why is political power so often fused with wealth? Two philosophers search for an answer as to what went wrong in the post-communist world after 1989. [Russian version added] [more]

A new way to talk politics

"New Humanist" predicts religion might be Romney's downfall; "Mittelweg 36" wants more justice through more Europe; "Merkur" seeks guidance in founding principles; "La Revue nouvelle" reports on a big day for democracy in Belgium; "Osteuropa" finds European standards wanting in Croatian history books; "Magyar Lettre" exposes the Belarusian blind spot in Milosz's native realm; and "The Hungarian Quarterly" talks to László Krasznahorkai about God, the world and (the end of) literature. [more]

In God they trust

Religion isn't the most important factor in the Republican primaries, but it's always there. Abby Ohlheiser explains the religious calculus in Republican politics and why the "Mormon question" might turn out to be Mitt Romney's undoing. [more]

Plucked strings

"Söndörgö" and the lost music of the Balkans

Hungarian South Slav folk band Söndörgö's "delicate, transparent" sound derives from the tambura, a mandolin-like instrument that is plucked and strummed, and is very different to the elegiac music of Transylvanian folk, writes Simon Broughton. [more]

The unwilling hegemon

On Germany's position in the European Union

Having become the European hegemon against its will, Germany must now act as a moderating power and gauge diverging interests and powers within the EU, argues Christoph Schönberger. [more]

Tymoshenko: Wake-up call for the EU

The EU shouldn't be surprised by the Tymoshenko verdict: its support of anything nominally reformist has been perceived as acceptance of a range of repressions. Tough measures are now needed to prevent another authoritarian state forming on the EU's borders. [German version added] [more]

Repercussions

Historical perspectives on the Arab revolutions

The discontent fuelling the Arab revolutions has its roots in a western politics of divide and rule, argues Gérard Khoury. Will democratically elected Arab leaders break with the past, or will new repressive regimes emerge sustained by western complicity? [more]

But the foundations stand firm

After the massacre on Utøya on 22 July 2011, Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg assumed the role as "comforter of the nation". He describes the thinking behind the wording of his statements and sees in their positive reception a "renaissance of the public address". [more]

A thousand people for democracy

The G1000 was a citizens' summit held in Brussels on 11 November 2011, based on the idea that Belgium's recent political crisis was not only a national crisis, but a wider crisis for democracy. A participant describes the proceedings and evaluates the results. [more]

More justice through more Europe

An interview with Ulrich Beck

While discrepancies between EU member states can be overlooked during win-win periods of growth, recession triggers xenophobic and anti-European reactions in both rich and poor countries. In interview, Ulrich Beck explains how inequality leaves the Union susceptible to decay. Building on the sense of a common European destiny engendered by the crisis, how can Europe be communicated as an opportunity for more power rather than a threat to national sovereignty? [more]

Greece: The history behind the collapse

Greece's economic crisis has its roots in a political pact dating back to the foundation of the modern state, writes Georges Prévélakis. The threat posed to Europe by the Greek breakdown is less contagion than a wave of anti-western feeling that could exacerbate geopolitical instabilities. [more]

Structural funds and crocodile tears

Why the EU must share the blame for the Greek crisis

Misdirected EU aid in Greece has fostered political clientelism, writes Iannis Carras. Instead of learning from mistakes, current EU/IMF policy favours construction and privatization of state land. Quite apart from the environmental risks, this is counterproductive in economic terms. [more]

Where were you when Europe fell apart?

Too many Europeans have too long avoided the question of Europe, says Swedish writer Per Wirtén. To prevent the EU from turning into a "post-democratic regime of bureaucrats", intellectuals need to stop mumbling and take the fear of Europe seriously. [more]

"Transparency" in scare quotes

"Esprit" sheds new perspectives on the Arab Revolutions; "Gegenworte" argues that good science is good business; "Index on Censorship" calls for greater transparency in pharmaceutical trials; "Arena" sees Swedish transparency clouded by closed Stasi archives; "La Revue Nouvelle" says beware "transparency", it's not what it seems; "Dileme veche" accounts for Romania's lack of international clout; "Varlik" examines society's conscience; and "Ord&Bild" gets positive reviews. [more]

Secret trials

Drug study secrecy puts lives at risk

Studies to test drugs are too often never made public, putting lives at risk. All results from medical trials need to be released so that evidence-based policy making replaces policy-based evidence making, writes Deborah Cohen of the British Medical Journal. [more]

Repercussions

Historical perspectives on the Arab revolutions

The discontent fuelling the Arab revolutions has its roots in a western politics of divide and rule, argues Gérard Khoury. Will democratically elected Arab leaders break with the past, or will new repressive regimes emerge sustained by western complicity? [more]

"Unapplied science": A notion fit for the 21st century?

Ethical distinctions between basic and applied research are inappropriate in a world offering extraordinary ways to apply new knowledge, argues Günter Stock. We need to find alternative criteria for research, discarding old schemata with their many connotations. [more]

Islam and democracy

The history of an approximation

In Iran, official revolutionary dogma has obliged "post-Islamist" philosophers to provide profound justifications for Islam's compatibility with democracy. Katajun Amirpur puts contemporary Iranian thinking on religion and politics in the context of Khomeini-era anti-westernism. [more]

Responsibility for Europe: A relative concept

On French-German tensions during the euro crisis

French-German leadership during the crisis has been fraught with tension. It's not so much that Germany is abandoning its responsibilities, more a case of differences in political culture. While Germany may seem dilatory, French resolve forfeits democratic deliberation. [more]

Stable instabilities

Capitalism in historical perspective

It's not capitalism that has come to an end but a mode of politics that seeks to guarantee market stability, argues Werner Plumpe. The crisis must be allowed to serve its cyclical function, the state limiting itself to compensating for the social consequences of economic transformation. [more]

Land of confusion

Ukraine, the EU and the Tymoshenko case

The Ukraine-European Union summit, planned for 19 December, was to have brought talks on an Association Agreement to a conclusion. But conflict with the EU over the prosecution of Yuliya Tymoshenko means Ukraine's future hangs in the balance, writes Tatiana Zhurzhenko. [more]

"Managed" v "market capitalism": The record

The thirty-year long experiment in market capitalism has failed to unleash a new era of dynamism, argues Stewart Lansley. Examining key areas in which the market model was supposed to deliver, he finds that, on almost every count, "managed capitalism" outperformed its successor. [more]

Itching powder for the Left

"Blätter" warns of a Schmittian turn in European politics; "Soundings" speaks for socialist England; "Merkur" signs off the end of an editorial era; "Osteuropa" seeks reasons for Russia's retarded democracy; "Samtiden" asks what if Breivik had been an Arab; "Syn og Segn" talks to Yoko Ono about the importance of an empty mind; "L'Espill" scrutinizes Spain's new far-Right; and "Host" celebrates Czech balladeer Karel Jaromir Erben. [more]

Russia's retarded democracy

From empire to nation-state

Russia today, like during the Soviet period, is held together by a repressive power vertical. However this integration remains largely formal. An historical analysis of Russia's retarded democracy suggests that beneath the monolithic surface lies the potential for further national secession. [more]

Sovereign without the people: The putsch of the markets

"Sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception," wrote Carl Schmitt. The extent of the losses suffered by democratic sovereignty during the euro crisis is illustrated by the unelected "expert governments" of Italy and Greece, writes Albrecht von Lucke. [more]

One voice above the rest

Avowedly enthusiastic about reader interaction, journalists in fact prefer to keep their distance, writes Kathrin Passig: readers might not be clever enough or worse, more clever. It's not sheer laziness but solid reasoning that lies behind journalists' aversion to participation. [more]

Change must start from within

Roma integration: EU rhetoric and institutional reality

European member are now answerable to the European Commission regarding the integration of Roma. But what are the chances of national policies succeeding if structural anti-Roma racism exists within European institutions themselves? [more]

Russia: Society, politics and the search for community

What are the factors that could end Russia's democratic inertia? While pressure from below is likely to provoke consolidation of the elites, writes Samuel A. Greene, long-term economic decline might encourage greater European integration and reform of the country's institutions. [more]

Europe's self-destructive article of faith

European leaders' unwavering commitment to ever closer union is causing more harm than good, argues Stefan Auer. Europe doesn't need more integration; it needs more democracy. Partial and well-managed disintegration may be preferable to a chaotic implosion. [more]

Towards the surveillance union

Politics and the euro crisis

Is the monetary union worth preserving if it means the virtual colonization of the weakest member economies? Assessing responses to the euro crisis, John Grahl observes a regime emerging in which EU authorities override national decision-making in every aspect of public policy. [more]

Democracy put to the test

While democracy evaporates on a national level, it doesn't reappear anywhere else, least of all in Europe. Maintaining the democratic nature of our societies depends on the rules of the game we impose on ourselves at the European level, argues José Ignacio Torreblanca. [more]

New Eurozine partner: Letras Libres

The Spanish journal "Letras Libres" has joined the Eurozine network. Based in Madrid and also publishing a Mexican edition, the monthly describes its aim as being to act as a bridge between cultures and as a tool for dialogue between countries and continents. [more]

Kaliningrad's architectural heritage: An insider's view

What is the threat implied in the handover of the symbolically significant architectural heritage of the Kaliningrad region to the Orthodox Church of Russia? Local historian Anna Karpenko examines the social and cultural aspects of the conflict. [Danish version added] [more]

Twelve theses on WikiLeaks

Vindictive, politicized, conspiratorial, reckless: one need not agree with WikiLeaks' modus operandi to acknowledge its service to democracy. Geert Lovink and Patrice Riemens see indications of a new culture of exposure beyond the traditional politics of openness and transparency. [Estonian version added] [more]

Recent history and the new dangers of politicization

With the past ceasing to be a body of knowledge and becoming a public issue, a new form of political influence has exerted itself upon historians, warns Pierre Nora. In France, the subject of colonialism is particularly controversial. More than ever it is crucial historians retain critical distance. [more]

Unreliable narrators

Witness accounts and the institutionalization of European history

A preference for witness accounts in European museums creates a blandly affirmative surface under which narrative authority continues to operate. Questions of reliability aside, is a witness-based history even able to fulfil the necessary task of narrating Europe's political identity? [more]

Racism in a post-racial Europe

Critique of culturalism as a polite form of Eurocentrism is to be distinguished from the new wave of anti-multiculturalism, argues Alana Lentin. Ostensibly aimed at the illiberalism of multiculturalism's "beneficiaries", the latter expresses intolerance of "bad diversity". [more]

Delaying the nemesis

"Esprit" ponders German contradictions; "Polar" cautions against playing safe; "Lettera internazionale" obtains Adriatic equilibrium; "dérive" enjoys urban pleasures; "Vikerkaar" theorizes cultural explosions; "Akadeemia" disregards the perennially contrary; "Dialogi" revisits the classic avant-garde; and "Springerin" reappraises the art of diplomacy. [more]

Is Germany's future still European?

An interview with Jan-Werner Müller

Germany's politicians lack deep European convictions yet are susceptible to calls for a more strident role in Europe; and while the mainstream is unlikely to give up what it sees as the recipe for German success, "constitutional patriotism" could allow for greater Europeanization. [more]

Me Ltd.

If individuals are to act as corporations, then they should at least receive the protection conferred by the concept of limited liability: assurance of security and not the threat of social demotion will encourage employees to take professional risks. The Danish "flexicurity" model is instructive. [more]

Too much of a good thing

Security as responsibility of the state after Hobbes

Hobbes justified state sovereignty through the individual striving for security. Yet from the insight that without security there can be no good life, he arrived at a concept of security that endangers the good life, argues Achim Vesper. [more]

Copyleft and the theory of property

A battle is underway between the supporters of intellectual property and the defenders of "the commons". Mikhail Xifaras traces the history of the concept of "exclusive rights" and evaluates the emancipatory claims of the copyleft movement today. [Estonian version added] [more]

The last tremors

Like in 1848, the Arab revolutions are spearheaded by young people whose democratic aspirations can no longer be halted, writes Gilbert Achcar. No matter what happens in the short term, there exists the real possibility that a liberal order will arise. [more]

Scenes from the battlefield

Despite renewed crackdowns on the independent media in Belarus, there are signs that the tide is turning in the battle for free speech in the country. However, victory for the democratic forces will require politicizing Belarus' young Internet audience, writes Iryna Vidanava. [Danish version added] [more]

The de-politicization of politics

The challenge for a liberal democracy is to remain as such, argues Charles Taylor in conversation with Slawomir Sierakowski. Western democracies suffer two types of deterioration: a misperception of really existing problems and a lack of vital tension between the demos and the government. [more]

Unreal estate

Freemarket disregard for the elementary moral truths of debt and obligation is to blame for the current crisis, says Roger Scruton. But the call for a return to economic morality is no endorsement of the financial fictions of the social democratic state. [Romanian version added] [more]

The crass defence of Christendom

"New Humanist" lays to rest the myth of Christian values; "Glänta" watches racism mutate; "Vikerkaar" calls Breivik the first terrorist of the European New Right; "Wespennest" explores Austria as it is; "Magyar Lettre" seeks alternatives to regime architecture; "Merkur" dwells on the Green vision of self-induced annihilation; "Blätter" says Iranian philosophers prove Islam can do democracy; "Studija" doubts good art needs the kudos of victimization; and "NLO" re-reads Enlightenment cosmopolitanism. [more]

The last crusade

The claim that Christianity embodies the bedrock of European cultural values simplifies both the history of Christianity and the roots of modern democracy, argues Kenan Malik. Ironically, the defenders of "Christendom" draw on the same politics of identity as Islamists and multiculturalists. [more]

Not just to build

Recovering architecture in Central Europe

In eastern central Europe, the neoliberal "regime architecture" favoured by non-state actors is copied by the public sector, resulting in buildings with no representative function. To counter this trend, architects must serve as ambassadors of architecture and quality space. [more]

Bank bail-out as a farce

Of all the absurdities in the latest banking rescue package, writes Lucas Zeise, the greatest is that the banks are being rescued at all. Widespread disbelief in governments and banks condemns the carefully constructed rescue structure to farcial failure. [more]

So much Austria

Speculations on the invention of a country

Insecurity and the fear of being overlooked is what compels Austria to talk about itself incessantly. Two luxury volumes reveal to Wolfgang Müller-Funk what is unique about the symbolic construction of the Austrian nation: its foundation upon a chain of defeats. [more]

The nature party

For the fledgling German Green Party, nature was both a term of political struggle and the basis for a new social morality. The Green horizon of self-induced annihilation has since led to a fundamental change in political agenda-setting. [more]

G1000 Manifesto

If the politicians can't find a solution, let the citizens. On 11 November 2011, one thousand Belgian citizens will be brought together to discuss the future of their country. Eurozine publishes the manifesto of a pathbreaking experiment in deliberative democracy. [more]

Sea and sun for Europe

A new project for the next generation

Democratic upsurge in North Africa can combine with the energy revolution to revive the European project. Two-way developmental traffic across the Mediterranean would leave new generations in both North and South with fair chances of a good life. [English version added] [more]

Markets and society

When high finance cripples the economy and corrodes democracy

The current financial crisis is not confined to economies, writes former Romanian finance minister Daniel Daianu. The erosion of the middle class, the spread of extremism and the threat to democracy are some of the more obvious social effects demanding attention. [Danish version added] [more]

Tymoshenko: Wake-up call for the EU

The EU shouldn't be surprised by the Tymoshenko verdict: its support of anything nominally reformist has been perceived as acceptance of a range of repressions. Tough measures are now needed to prevent another authoritarian state forming on the EU's borders. [German version added] [more]

What colour is the Danube?

The colour of the Danube varies according to history and geography. Never able to truly form the countries through which it runs into a single political entity, it nevertheless connects peoples and regions reconcilable only in dreams or poetry. [more]

To anticipate change, return to work

An interview with Jean-Paul Bouchet and Patrick Pierron

Employees no longer understand the changes taking place in companies or know where they stand in the chain of production. Compartmentalization and lack of involvement in decision-making are among the reasons for the rise in employee anxiety, argue two trade unionists. [more]

Foreign, all too foreign

"Varlik" sees the Gastarbeiter turn 50; "Cogito" (Turkey) misses coverage of civil disobedience in the Turkish press; "Arena" predicts the downfall of the euro; "Esprit" asks what's driving employees over the edge; "Mittelweg 36" finds nothing ordinary about ordinary men; "Intellectum" talks to genocide lawyer William Schabas; "La Revue nouvelle" says the working class still frightens Europe's conservatives; "NZ" examines the national form of proletarian content; and "Le Monde diplomatique" (Oslo) reads Gombrowicz to understand the depravities of today's far-Right. [more]

Traces that won't go away

The Gastarbeiter fifty years on

The first Turkish "Gastarbeiter" arrived in Germany fifty years ago. Since then, their reception in German society has swung between enthusiasm and hostility. Yüksel Pazarkaya summarizes the history of the migrant workers, drawing conclusions for today's debate on integration. [more]

Perpetrators without qualities

On the impact of social-psychological models in Holocaust research

Social-psychological research tends to reproduce the ideal of inherently good, sane and normal human beings. The possibility that subjects have multiple identities and that hybrid states deserve the term "normal" challenges this assumption. [more]

The virtual rebel: Mon semblable!

Despite his or her ceaseless social networking, the virtual rebel's many hours of online agitation remain largely unproductive. Time for some real-time, says Victor Tsilonis, editor of Greek journal "Intellectum". [more]

The EU: The real sick man of Europe?

Democratic deficit, enlargement fatigue and ever more rescue funds: is there still a future for a common Europe? In a discussion in Eurozine's series "Europe talks to Europe", prominent intellectuals diagnosed causes for the current malaise of the EU. [Spanish version added] [more]

Literatur im Herbst 2011: Via Donau

28-30 October 2011, Odeon Theatre Vienna

The Literatur im Herbst literary festival 2011 will take place in Vienna from 28 to 30 October. Over three days, 23 authors from ten countries will be reading from and talking about their work, under the title "Via Donau: Literatur im Fluss" (Via Danube: Literature in flow). [more]

New Eurozine partner: La Revue nouvelle

The Belgian journal "La Revue nouvelle" has joined the Eurozine network. Based in Brussels, the French language monthly has a generalist approach, featuring issues from society, culture, politics, economics, literature, art and religion. [more]

Vibrant matter, zero landscape

Interview with Jane Bennett

Philosopher Jane Bennett explains what she understands by "vital materialism" and why rightwing religious rhetoric led her to entertain the notion of an "undesigned order of materiality" possessing "the dynamic, incalculable, awesome and awful qualities elsewhere ascribed to God". [more]

White melancholia

Mourning the loss of "Good old Sweden"

Sweden's post-war image as frontrunner of egalitarianism and antiracism contains more than a trace of national and racial chauvinism, argue two whiteness studies scholars. As myths of the better Sweden fade, both Right and Left are consumed by "white melancholy". [more]

The politics of no alternatives or How power works in Russia

An interview with Gleb Pavlovsky

In interview with "Transit", former dissident turned "political technologist" Gleb Pavlovsky talks about the workings of political power in the former Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. [Polish version added] [more]

Caught in the web

There are clear signs that Internet-radicalization was behind the terrorism of Anders Behring Breivik. Though most research on this points to jihadism, it can teach us a lot about how Internet-radicalization of all kinds can be fought. [more]

War in Europe? Not so impossible

The dark warnings of the Polish finance minister about the prospect of war in Europe if the crisis deepens were met with scepticism. But there is no call for complacency about where current, nationalist tendencies might lead, writes the editor of "Adevarul Europa". [Danish version added] [more]

Anything but democracy

"Blätter" suggests a way to make Europe future-fit; "Lettera Internazionale" likes the pace and plurality of the South; "Fronesis" prefers the critique to the critiqued; "Dilema veche" finds Europe in thrall to a nationalist minority; "Dziejaslou" consults augurs and magic realists; "Res Publica Nowa" asks what Poles want of their leaders; "Multitudes" enters gaseous modernity; and "Du" bursts the neuro-bubble. [more]

What is the state of critique today?

A conversation with Anders Johansson, Sharon Rider and Malin Rönnblom

Is what is taken to be critique today merely confirmation of the moral consensus? In the neoliberal culture of the audit, has critique been deprived of its role as check on ideology? And does preference for impact-oriented research produce political compliance rather than independent critical thought? [more]

Sea and sun for Europe

A new project for the next generation

Democratic upsurge in North Africa can combine with the energy revolution to revive the European project. Two-way developmental traffic across the Mediterranean would leave new generations in both North and South with fair chances of a good life. [English version added] [more]

The words that kill

The challenge is to find the words with which to counter the visions of purity harboured by the propagators of terror. Ola Larsmo on the recent spate of terrorist acts in Sweden and Norway, culminating in the massacre in Oslo and Utøya on 22 July. [more]

Democratic, can travel

The Russian regime's abandonment of the ideology of public interest prevents it being measured against its own standards, while its policy of open borders diffuses protest from a dissatisfied middle class. Ivan Krastev on reasons for authoritarianism's tenacity.[Romanian version added] [more]

Algeria: A country in search of its movement

A brief account of the Years of Fire

In Algeria, the uprising is being kept down by political propaganda and police brutality. Ghania Mouffok describes the deep anger of a population that has been living under a state of emergency since 1992, asking whether the street can join with the liberal elite to depose the corrupt and complacent government. [Turkish version added] [more]

Franz Liszt 1811-1886

Franz Liszt, born 200 years ago in Hungary, lived a "trifurcated life" divided between Weimar, Rome and Budapest. On the composer's bicentenary, Mariá Eckhardt recalls the career of the only nineteenth century Hungarian musician to be recognized as among the greatest in the world. [more]

The emperor of lies

Book presentation and discussion

Steve Sem-Sandberg's novel "The Emperor of Lies" has been widely acclaimed. But it is not uncontroversial. On Monday 24 October in Vienna, Sem-Sandberg talks to Martin Pollack about the book and about the many dos and don'ts surrounding literature about the Holocaust. [more]

Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin

Book presentation and discussion

Timothy Snyder's book "Bloodlands" is a new kind of European narrative, viewing the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history. On 20 October, Snyder presents his book in Vienna and talks to Sybille Steinbacher. [more]

The university in the twenty-first century

Towards a democratic and emancipatory university reform

Universities can regain their legitimacy only through radical democratic restructuring. Countering the brain-drain -- so far the main result of the transnationalization of education -- will only be possible by embarking on a counter-hegemonic process of educational globalization. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Here am I, where are you?

Loneliness in the era of communication

The Internet has abolished loneliness, or rather got rid of its negative effects to a hitherto unimagined degree, writes Aleida Assmann. Borders between sociability and loneliness are shifting and the pressure of social conformity lessens as computer nerds turn into savvy heroes. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Tricolour – three colours of justice

The modern notion of justice linked to ideas of human rights and democracy is highly complex, pulling in different directions. Cornelia Klinger explains how "justice" as we understand it today can be inferred from the conceptual trinity of the French Revolution. [Estonian version added] [more]

Cooperate or bust

The existential crisis of the European Union

The critique that Europe lacks representative legitimacy may well be correct, argues Ulrich Beck, but not when based on the principle of "no nation, no democracy". Cosmopolitanization demands post-national approaches to democratic accountability in Europe. [more]

The fictions of finance

"Index" says art is first in line for censorship worldwide; "openDemocracy" asks whether the eurocrisis is a moral crisis; "Blätter" thinks the Web can still be saved; "Syn og Segn" seeks solutions to Internet extremism; "Gegenworte" has discovered the fountain of youth; "Le Monde diplomatique" (Oslo) encounters south-Slavic cultural unity on Mount Tito; "Kulturos barai" celebrates Tadeusz Konwicki's visions of homeland; and "Ord&Bild" talks to Steve Sem-Sandberg about writing and research. [more]