Europe today is divided not by developmental or systemic differences, but two competing ideologies. They cannot co-exist, like political parties, but must displace each other’s vision for the West. But while liberal democracies adhere to a liberal international order, and leaders like Orbán define the West in narrow ethnonationalist terms, a whole new East-West front opens up between the US and an ascendant China.
Articles
The redundancies of mainstream economics
Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 119 (2019)
In the new issue of ‘Revista Crítica’ (Portugal): a dossier on the economy as a ‘substantive reality’, beyond the limitations of mainstream economics, looking at interdisciplinary methods and ‘economics imperialism’, the political meaning of work, and the paradoxes of ‘innovation’.
The secret history of radiation
An interview with Kate Brown
In the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident, international agencies dismissed local doctors’ warnings about a ‘public health catastrophe’ in order to suppress scandal over nuclear tests carried out by the West since the 1950s. This is the conclusion reached by Kate Brown, in her new book ‘Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future’. Here, she talks to Aro Velmet about the secret history of radiation and what Chernobyl means in the era of climate change.
Progressive parties must bundle ecology, anti-authoritarianism and multiculturalism into a political project ‘beyond right and left’, argues Claus Leggewie. Resistance now means social and ecological campaigning against the dominant powers and ideas of industrial modernity. The right is called upon to take part in this new politics of concordance.
Recommended topics
Yellow fever
Populist pangs in France
The ‘gilets jaunes’ are a complex movement that has grown from a distrust of France’s elites towards demands for citizen-led democracy. Their invocation of the French Revolution has provided the movement with a powerful sense of popular legitimacy but, as Gabriel Bristow argues, contains contradictions of its own.
Freedom of movement
A European dialectic
Attitudes towards immigration are said to be split down an East–West divide, but it is western Europe that has traditionally feared ‘invasions’ from the East and that responded to EU enlargement in 2004 with restrictions on labour migration. Now that eastern and western Europe are more deeply integrated than ever before, the defining question will be how Europe negotiates immigration from outside its borders.
Brexiters claim that the Northern Ireland question is exaggerated by the EU to keep the UK in its orbit. But, as the murder of journalist Lyra McKee showed, the potential for a renewed spiral of sectarian violence is very real. The central problem, writes Peter Geoghegan, is that every side believes it won the war. Equally damaging is the denialism of the British state over its role in the Troubles.
Eurozine review
The redundancies of mainstream economics
Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 119 (2019)
In the new issue of ‘Revista Crítica’ (Portugal): a dossier on the economy as a ‘substantive reality’, beyond the limitations of mainstream economics, looking at interdisciplinary methods and ‘economics imperialism’, the political meaning of work, and the paradoxes of ‘innovation’.
Political disenchantment in Belgium
La Revue Nouvelle 6 (2019)
‘La Revue Nouvelle’ analyses political disenchantment in Belgium: Social Democracy urgently needs to rethink as voter apathy aids rise of far-right Vlaams Belang; and as new ideological rifts pit productivity vs. ecology and nation vs. immigration.
Against denialism
New Humanist 3/2019
In New Humanist, Peter Geoghegan warns against denialism over Northern Ireland: if not a direct result of Brexit, then the new sectarianism has certainly been precipitated by it. Also: articles on religion in the UK, social tech and the far-right, and the elisions of official feminism.
Focal points
The focal point presents the findings of the project ‘Eurasia in Global Dialogue’ being carried out at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna (IWM). It is edited by Clemena Antonova at the IWM. The focal point is an extension of the earlier focal point, ‘Russia in Global Dialogue’ that ran in Eurozine and at the IWM from 2012–2018 and was edited by Tatiana Zhurzhenko. Further texts have been contributed by journals in the Eurozine network.
Post-revolutionary Ukrainian society displays a unique mix of hope, enthusiasm, social creativity, collective trauma of war, radicalism and disillusionment. With the Maidan becoming history, the focal point ‘Ukraine in European Dialogue’ explores the new challenges facing the young democracy, its place in Europe, and the lessons it might offer for the future of the European project.
When the Cold War came to a sudden end thirty years ago, the two halves of Europe declared in unison their intention to overcome the legacy of the division. Today, the hopes and ambitions of those heady days can be viewed as unrealistic at best. But is talk of a new East–West divide justified? A new Eurozine focal point asks what happened to ’89 in the intervening years.
Cultural journals have played a crucial role in the formation of the public spheres in Europe and beyond. Looking at their history helps understand where they are headed. A Eurozine focal point in collaboration with the Working Group on Periodicals Research.
Eurozine Network
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.