Articles

Hungary’s new constitution contradicts European democratic standards on numerous counts. It allows the current government to set in stone its economic and social policy; it excludes other nationalities living within Hungary while entitling “ethnic” Hungarians beyond its borders; and, most starkly anti-democratically, it undermines the independence of regulatory institutions ranging from the national bank to the constitutional court and media.

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?

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?

The euro will be brought down by a European Tea Party-type movement of well-off northerners unwilling to pay for indebted countries, 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.

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.

The causes for the discontent fuelling the Arab revolutions are to be found in a western politics of divide and rule over the past century, argues Gérard Khoury. Will democratically elected Arab leaders make a break with the practices of their predecessors, or will new repressive regimes emerge sustained by western complicity?

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.

After the massacre on Utøya on 22 July 2011, Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg assumed the role as “comforter of the nation”, a response typically Scandinavian in its implication of a quasi-paternal relationship between prime minister and population. Writing in ‘Samtiden’, Stoltenberg describes the thinking behind the wording of his statements and sees in their overwhelmingly positive reception a “renaissance of the public address”.

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 with Nikola Tietze and Ulrich Bielefeld for Mittelweg 36, 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?

Misdirected EU aid has strengthened rent-seeking elements in the Greek economy and fostered political clientelism, writes Iannis Carras. Instead of learning from mistakes, current EU/IMF policy favours construction and privatization of state land, enabled through a legal sleight of hand. Quite apart from the environmental risks, this is counterproductive in economic terms.

Historically positioning themselves between an unruly, oriental population and the western powers, since 1981 Greek elites have siphoned off EU funds into a bloated public sector favouring corruption, patronage and social climbing. The threat posed to Europe by the breakdown is less contagion to the centre than a wave of anti-western feeling that could exacerbate geopolitical instabilities in the region.

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.

Studies to test the safety and efficacy of drugs and medical devices are too often never made public, putting lives at risk. Head of Investigations at the ‘British Medical Journal’, Deborah Cohen reports.

In Iran, the revolutionary dogma prevailing at the official level 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 the intellectual anti-westernism of the Khomeini era.

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