Viewing authoritarianism as a political trend overlooks the damage it can cause. The devastation ‘illiberal democracies’ are inflicting on cultural and media sectors show just how difficult it is to recreate something once it has been taken apart. Eurozine partners discuss ways to sustain journalism at the 32nd European Meeting of Cultural Journals.

Articles

Europe is facing not only Orbán’s autocratic turn but also that of his ‘apprentice’: Slovakia’s prime minister, Fico, has taken an advanced course in attacking his country’s judiciary, media and cultural institutions. His first goal: to get away with it, say beleaguered intellectuals, theatre directors, political scientists and investigative journalists from Bratislava.

Cover for: After the deluge

Deadly floods in Spain highlight systemic flaws in approaches to extreme weather events. The terrible human cost in Valencia was largely the result of local government leaders and businesses ignoring warnings and responding too late. It’s time to rethink a system that prioritizes revenue over safety.

Vikerkaar

Estonia

Recommended topics

Eurozine review

Cover for: Layers of dispossession

Layers of dispossession

Soundings 87 (2024)

On the geography of Israeli settler colonialism; queer perspectives on the war in Ukraine; the experiences of Afghan ‘returnees’; and the familiar pattern of UK Labourism.

Cover for: Neganthropology

Neganthropology

Czas Kultury 2/2024

The politics and psychology of locality: on reviving local communities as high-tech expands and diversifies; forming networks against entropy; the Tortoise Strategy for caring; and rewriting life scripts.

Cover for: Beyond the canon

Beyond the canon

Positionen 140 (2024)

Questioning the canon of electronic music history: on feminist debate between integrating women composers and anti-mainstreaming; the Danish composer who wrote her place in the chronicles. Also, empathetic yet non-romantic environmental sound art in Finland.

Partner journals

Focal points

Cover for: Mood of the Union 2024

The European Parliament elections on 9 June are a referendum on EU policy since 2019. Will voters give Europe the green light for further progress, or pull the brakes? A new Eurozine series measures the political atmosphere in the EU and its neighbourhoods at this crucial moment.

Cover for: Breaking bread

Food and water systems under pressure: as the end of abundance becomes an everyday experience in Europe, we are thinking more closely about how our food reaches the table.

Cover for: Ukraine in European dialogue

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.

Cover for: The writing on the wall

Some observers, recalling the disasters of the 1920s and 30s, are suggesting that an anti-democratic counterrevolution on a global scale has begun. But is the writing really on the wall? Or does declinism prevent us from recognizing moments of democratic renewal?

Eurozine Network

Cover for: Eurozine Funding Opportunities Outlook

Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.


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