Few articles in the recent past can have been vilified so heavily by so many intelligent people than Francis Fukuyama’s ‘The end of history’. Now, thirty years on, the article is worth re-reading. Because, unless one is nostalgic for an orthodox version of dialectical materialism, it is hard to find anything to strongly disagree with. On the contrary.
The smugness of some Irish commentary on Brexit is ill-advised, writes Maurice Earls. Brexit is not an aberration but the expression of a deep-rooted cultural attitude – one that won’t simply disappear under the wheel of progress. Failure to grasp this could prove dangerous for the European Union.
The coming EP elections will serve as a stress test for the role that Croatia plays as the latest EU member state. It will also deliver a verdict on local elites’ efforts to restore their influence in Bulgaria and gauge popular sentiment regarding Austria’s upside-down political system.
The products of Hungary’s post-truth laboratory are being received with increasing scepticism, while in Estonia the European elections will be a test of nerve following March’s general election. In Belgium, at least, things are just about holding together.
High drama has characterized political life in all three countries during the run up to the European elections in May. The Left is to form a government for the first time in 20 years in Finland but nationalist populism is no less a force there than in Slovakia or the Netherlands.
Francis Fukuyama’s argument that far-right identity politics were pioneered by the left has been criticized as blame-shifting. But this is a partial reading, he counters: identity politics are inherent to the democratic ethos and rooted in modernity itself. Understanding their use by the far-right enables us to form a response.
‘A battle of generosity’ has broken out as the world watched the Notre Dame of Paris burn.The devastation was narrated live in the style of a disaster movie. Self-appointed champions are now rushing to take lead roles: that of the main donor, or the politician from afar who knew better what should have been done.
The outcome of this year’s European elections is more likely to be determined by the state of nations’ finances than their media landscapes. However, the making and breaking of coalitions is something that money still, it seems, cannot buy.
A combination of institutional arrogance and neoliberal policy has broken the link between EU and its citizens. And yet, as the mass demonstrations in support of EU membership in Britain since the Brexit vote show, Europe can still inspire affection. To continue to be worthy of such sentiments, the EU must develop forms of integration beyond rules and markets.
European memory culture is being undermined from two very different directions: first by resurgent far-right revisionism, second by the new subjectivism in historical methodology. Rather than relying on new technologies to preserve memory, we need to return to the event, to physical place, and to direct communication, argues Claus Leggewie.
For many countries, the EP elections in May come amidst political upheavals at home. Views from Gothenburg, Bucharest and Barcelona present an image of Europe poised between widespread pro-European sentiment and domestic instability.
Hopes of a smooth transition from ‘goulash communism’ to market economies have long since been dashed by the ‘post-Soviet mafia-state’ in Hungary. But to what extent are liberal intellectuals themselves responsible, through their elitist disdain for the rest of the population, for the decline of democracy in Hungary?
In a system in which inequality, consumption and the desire for recognition correlate, giving plays a central role: gifts express our sense of our own value as much as that of others. Only by legitimizing areas of acknowledgement beyond economic success can we move towards a more inclusive form of giving, argues sociologist Alain Caillé.
The number of deaths caused globally by antibiotic resistance is increasing at alarming speed. The problem is well known, but governments and pharma appear not to take it seriously. Progress in bacteriophage research gives cause for optimism, however: using CRISPR gene editing technologies, these organisms can be deployed as an alternative to antibiotics.
Eurozine’s series of reports on national debates in Europe in the run-up to the EP elections continues. Views from Maribor, Vilnius and Paris suggest that, amidst the European ennui, the green shoots of grass roots democracy may be showing.
Both materially and politically, eastern Europe has never been closer to the West. At the same time, the post-communist myth of western superiority has lost its power. As imitation gives way to defiance, a new set of political challenges emerges, writes Jarosław Kuisz.