The horrifying right to one’s own context
Seven rules of culture warfare
Anybody can become a cultural warrior, even unwillingly. With common grounds diminishing and liberals and conservatives dead-set against each other, is the Left doomed to fail?
Ondřej Slačálek
is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Charles University, Prague; was Jan Patočka Junior Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences (IWM) in 2017.
Articles
Sources of uncertain hope
Czech Republic, Spain, Norway and Belgium after the EP elections
After May’s elections, Prague saw the largest public demonstration since the Velvet Revolution. The country now hosts the strongest Pirate Party in Europe, while Spain provides the largest national component in the S&D bloc. Norway may yet become Europe’s green battery, as Belgium faces a great divide.
Of hopes and ends
Czech transformations after 1989
It is not the case that the move towards populism has spoiled democratic hopes in central and eastern Europe. The hope was part of the problem from the beginning, despite its emancipatory potential, or even because of it. We have to ask two questions: ‘what kind of hope?’ and ‘hope for what?
Unusually high stakes
Italy, Latvia and the Czech Republic before the EP elections
Overt euroscepticism pervades the political climate in Italy but is hardly anywhere to be found in Latvia. Meanwhile, low turnout in the Czech Republic may help facilitate a rightwing ‘Europe of nations’, despite the alternatives on the table.
