The ties between liberalism and democracy are under strain, challenged by self-styled illiberal ideologues from Budapest to Washington DC, and by the liberal-economic but undemocratic example of China. Romanian economist Daniel Dăianu makes the case for liberalism, and why it is worth fighting for if democracy is to thrive.
Germany’s altered party landscape is the culmination of the misfit between political centrism and the national-conservative groundswell catalysed by the refugee wave of 2015–16. Not only does the AfD pose major challenges to the other parties, it throws up uncomfortable questions about the role of the media in the dynamics of polarization.
Cultural journals have played a crucial role in the formation of the public spheres in Europe and beyond. Yet their future form and sustainability is by no means clear. Looking at journals’ history helps understand where they are headed. Introducing a new Eurozine focal point in collaboration with the Working Group on Periodicals Research.
Struggle in the street was combined with otherworldly utopias in the low budget, small circulation architectural magazines of the 1960s and 1970s. Free of the constraints of finance and convention, the genre served as an international platform for experimental design and discourse and was instrumental in the progress of architectural modernity.
Ord&Bild, Sweden’s oldest cultural journal, first appeared in 1892. Speaking at the 125th anniversary event in Gothenburg on 4 November 2017, long-time contributor Sven-Eric Liedman recalls Ord&Bild’s programme and personnel between the counter-cultural revolution of the 60s and the neoliberal revolution of the 1980s.
The Lebanese journal ‘Mawaqif’, published in various incarnations between 1968 and 1994, was one of the leading cultural journals of the Arab World. Its seventy-four issues reflect the intellectual upheavals brought by the Six-Day War, the Lebanese Civil War, and the Iranian Revolution, as well as far-reaching processes of modernization in Arab literary culture.
In ‘The Road to Unfreedom’, historian Timothy Snyder traces the intellectual roots of modern authoritarianism in Russia and how its influence has spread, not least in the West. In the following exchange, three east-central European scholars, brought together by ‘Razpotja’, critique Snyder’s new book – and Snyder responds.
From its libertarian origins to the big-data economy of the present, the internet has always oscillated between openness and control, liberty and domination, free-to-use and free enterprise. A brief chronology of the internet reveals a dynamic of power relationships that will continue to define how we interact with online technologies.
With populist politicians seemingly in the ascendant across the world, how have political theorists responded – and what lessons should they learn? Raffaella Baritono of the Italian journal ‘Il Mulino’ asks Michael Freeden, one of the pre-eminent theorists of liberalism, for his take on the current crisis not just of politics, but of political theory.
As traditional associations are replaced by social media, new forms of solidarity emerge. Looking at Japan, Carl Cassegård compares otaku culture and the protest movements since Fukushima to understand the ambiguities and potential of individualized mobilization.
In order to stem onward migration, the EU now pours billions of euros into the Horn of Africa and other regions, thereby blurring the lines between humanitarian aid and border control. Reporting from eastern Sudan, Caitlin L. Chandler describes the human cost of this policy, as previously permeable border zones become impassable or more dangerous.
The hunt for the person or people who ordered the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta last October appears to be making little progress. Caroline Muscat reports that the government there instead seems concerned with burnishing the country’s image.
Despite falling numbers of immigrants, the hardline border policy of Italy’s ‘government of change’ remains popular. The decision to close Italian ports to NGOs working in the Mediterranean and the delegation of rescue operations to the Libyan Coast Guard are having increasingly lethal effects. How long can the Italian public continue to ignore a humanitarian crisis?
The success of a hardline nationalist in last month’s parliamentary election in Slovenia represents another advance for the forces of illiberalism in central and southern Europe. In alliance with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, European ‘illiberals’ are using vilification of the Other as a route to power, argues Boris Vezjak.
In 2004, writer David Goodhart caused controversy in Britain with an essay warning that growing social diversity was putting strain on the social contract that underpins the welfare state. Christian Kjelstrup, editor of Eurozine partner journal Samtiden, speaks to Goodhart about how Brexit and the ongoing debate over immigration have reflected his arguments.
After 1989, cultural journals were central to the flourishing of intellectual life in Poland, enjoying circulations never reached before or since. However, neoliberalism has undermined journals’ popularity and financial viability. Dependency on public subsidies makes them increasingly vulnerable, writes the editor of ‘Czas Kultury’.