Articles

Many Russians were happy to exchange the freedoms of the 1990s for a stream of oil money and a concept of ‘order’ guaranteed by a paternalistic leader. Putin’s popularity may be wavering, but the demands he caters to are stronger than ever.

Philosophy: what is it good for? ‘It‘s complicated‘, says Dialogi editor Boris Vezjak, as he asks what can be done about a field of enquiry that seems so detached from the world.

A mixed field of populists emerge in Croatia amid a loss of confidence in the status quo; Cyprus takes stock after a campaign defined by nationalism; and in Slovakia far-right advances underline the need for innovative politics.

Caroline Muscat learned the dangers of running an independent news website in Malta after journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the country’s most prominent journalist, was assassinated and she herself was sued for libel.

The widespread fear from the label of radical feminism has blurred the interpretation of pre-1989 women’s movements. A generational clash further complicates the process of remembrance. The superficiality of post-feminism and gender mainstreaming threatens to erase the struggles of yet another feminist generation.

‘The Russians are in the pantry already!’ The European Union is finally starting to address the Kremlin’s political interference, but yet doesn’t address domestic disinformation.

While the rest of the world concentrated on the fall of the Berlin Wall, another wall in China brought about a different type of change. The economic power the most populous country has accumulated is now challenging the western claim that only liberal democracy would provide ideal circumstances for capitalism.

How can a writer possibly contribute to averting catastrophic climate change? By putting literature into an ‘ecological template’, writes the Icelandic poet and novelist Sjón. Together, writers are responsible for the ecosystem of literature as a whole.

Interviewed by Ludger Hagedorn, Czech political scientist Pavel Barša makes the case for a balance between the ideals of liberalism and collective sovereignty. Barša argues that individual freedom and civil solidarity are not possible without collective re-distribution and social solidarity, in his response to Timothy Snyder’s book ‘The Road to Unfreedom’.

The results of Greece’s snap general election, triggered by Syriza’s defeat in May, are eagerly awaited. Support for the far-right Danish People’s Party has collapsed, while Lithuania has grown more conservative. But isn’t there more to European politics than national swings and roundabouts?

The anachronistic appearance of the post-communist world fascinated westerners visiting eastern Europe after ’89. As Håkan Forsell puts it, the East offered the image of a ‘future that would never happen’. Four decades of totalitarianism were rapidly forgotten by the seekers of ‘true Europe’.

Although the Kremlin did try to interfere in European politics, focusing on Russia is misleading. Since some governments in the European Union are more interested in spreading fake news than stopping it, tackling disinformation cannot rely on them, Péter Krekó writes.

How precisely are crisis and political movements related? Looking at ‘breakdown’ and ‘world-systems’ approaches to social movements, Donatella Della Porta explains how conventional accounts of extreme rightwing politics fail to explain the new forms of political backlash against late neoliberalism.

Central and eastern Europe is boiling right now. Climate change is here to stay and dealing with it demands a new form of morality. It’s time to get those handheld fans out of grandma’s cupboard.

The conservative EPP and the Socialists & Democrats lost 71 seats between them in May’s election. Could this change the face of European politics? As Portugal exits austerity and Romania confronts corruption in politics, liberalism and populism thrash it out in France. The European centre will hold but must reach out.

Since censorship in state socialist Poland was more lenient than in other countries of the Eastern Bloc, a peculiar counterpublicity was formed between samizdat, émigré publishing and western radio stations which amplified the voice of dissent.