The improbable victory: lessons of the SPD’s election win
In his first Social Europe column, Robert Misik explains how the SPD prevailed in the Bundestag elections—and what follows.
Politics
Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher driven by the core values of freedom, sustainability, and equality. These principles guide our exploration of society’s most pressing challenges. This archive page curates Social Europe articles focused on political issues, offering a rich resource for innovative thinking and informed debate.
The new way of doing politics in times of elections
As Czechs go to the polls, a new politics is emerging across Europe, variously populist and technocratic.
Hungary’s path puts everyone’s rights in danger
The ostensible assault on LGBT+ rights in Hungary, Poland and Russia has a very big target—anyone who signs up to universal norms.
Intellectual monopoly capitalism—challenge of our times
Unregulated capitalism has always tended to monopoly. But Big Tech represents a challenge antitrust tools can’t tame.
Britain heads further down the Brexit rabbit-hole
Despite petrol shortages and empty shelves, Labour is adrift—and Johnson may press the Northern Ireland protocol nuclear button.
Most of Europe fails to guarantee access to abortion care
A comprehensive atlas of abortion policies across Europe shows that women’s experience ‘largely depends on their postcode’.
How Olaf Scholz won Germany
In a few months, Scholz reversed the social democrats’ decade-long decline, running on a message of dignity and respect for all workers.
Gender, ministers and political appointments
Women fronting governments sends an important signal. Having them in the backrooms of power is however also crucial.
It’s about the sausage
Ahead of the Bundestag elections on Sunday, just how did Olaf Scholz become the top candidate to be chancellor?
Finding solid ground: gateways to municipal socialism
From interwar Vienna through 1980s London and beyond, municipalities are the crucible of compelling socialist initiatives.
Despite all the international attention, Afghan refugees are not welcome
Nobody really knows what prospects await Afghan refugees when countries have yet to see human rights as rights for all humans.
Catalonia: a fraught dialogue begins
The leaders of the Spanish government and that in Catalonia have met across the table—but the gap between them remains large.
How democracy can win again
Democratic erosion in Hungary is symptomatic of structural problems afflicting most democracies, even threatening the future of civilisation.
Young people and planetary justice
Ultimately, resolving the collective-action dilemma of preserving a liveable planet will require a UN ‘constitution of the Earth’.
On the EU’s Belarus border, security and fundamental rights collide
Weronika Grzebalska argues that Lukashenka’s thrashing around in eastern Europe forces progressives to offer a positive alternative on security.
All together now: facing the global challenges of our time
Recent headlines make it seem an inauspicious moment for a progressive transatlantic political alliance—yet this couldn’t be more urgent.
The consequences of neoliberal capitalism in eastern Europe
Sheri Berman argues that post-communist left embrace of economic as well as political liberalism allowed populists to target the latter.