The history of decolonization tends to be understood as the progressive expansion of international society through the incorporation of formerly colonial states as sovereign equals. But this liberal narrative overlooks the revolutionary roots of the anti-colonial project in opposition to the exploitative and hierarchical system of empire.
Italian cities are ordinarily international tourism hotspots. Their economic recovery post-lockdown appears to depend on visitor numbers. And yet massified tourism brings its own pressures, undermining local housing provision. Alessio Giussani investigates the Italian city’s precarious situation, taking Airbnb’s impact as example.
New powers granted to the ‘bekçi’ – Turkey’s auxiliary police force – have led to a spate of violent confrontations, releasing traumatic memories of the military coup forty years ago. The revival of this Ottoman relic consolidates Erdoğan’s centralized rule. But will it end up hastening his decline?
Acknowledging the past is an ongoing necessity to know who we are, says Arnon Grunberg, whose Dutch WWII Remembrance Day lecture pointedly commemorates those who lost their lives shouting ‘No!’ and refusing to conform.
Since Putin’s demonstration of support for Lukashenka, time seems to be on the side of the Belarusian dictator. As long as he can rely on Kremlin backing, nothing short of a general strike will force him out, argues the Russian sociologist Lev Gudkov in interview with ‘Osteuropa’.
The suspicion that Trump will refuse to accept the result of the election is symptomatic of the state of democratic politics today. That modern liberal democracies can cancel themselves is an inevitable possibility. But to reduce politics to a battle between the defenders and the opponents of ‘true democracy’ is to turn pluralism into its opposite.
Can a sense of belonging exist that both encompasses nationhood and goes beyond it? Gary Younge, Susan Nieman and Jan Plamper look for a European identity that turns neoliberal ideology around.
Belgrade residents cannot afford the Savamala waterfront’s extortionate real-estate prices. Its decision-makers draw aspirational parallels between today’s urban development and the area’s post-Ottoman era but ignore the failures of both. Seemingly a-historic glass facades cannot disguise the strategic politicization of history, says Miloš Jovanović.
Materiality, connection, meaning and process: ‘Czas Kultury’ on artificial intelligence and epistemology – and what slime mould can teach us about social organization. Also: Adam Mickiewicz’s anti-liberalism as door-opener to radical socio-political transformation.
In ‘New Humanist’, openDemocracy journalist Peter Geoghegan describes the Transatlantic networks channelling dark money into Europe’s nativist movements. Also: why the bike is the way forward – on pedal power and social change.
‘Blätter’ publishes a major new essay by Jürgen Habermas on the German-European dialectic: why Merkel’s volte face on the European Recovery Fund is a response to the delayed effects of German reunification. Also: Orbán’s hollow boast and the complicity of European conservatism; and Israeli women against Benjamin Netanyahu.
Like sustenance and sex, society can’t be reproduced without shelter. That is why today’s housing crisis is so central. Contributions to this focal point look at both the winners and the losers of the crisis: the people profiting from the financialization of housing and those reimagining the right to the city.
The technoliberationism that accompanied the early days of the web now belongs to myth. Deleting Facebook is the new rebellion. Surveillance capitalism is the buzzword. Regulating is radical. Technology critique today starts with Big Tech’s power.
Disinformation is not the cause of illiberalism but its medium. The great majority of it is home grown. Thinking about ‘what to do’ about disinformation means understanding information as a public good. Abandoning a purely reactive strategy will stand democracies in better stead.
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 division. Today, the hopes and ambitions of those heady days may seem unrealistic. But is talk of a new East–West divide justified?
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.
