Léonce Bekemans initiates a ‘Europe 2025’ series on Social Europe, which will look beyond the May elections to the challenges in the next term, with a call for a mobilising vision. Throughout its shared history, Europe has always developed as a dynamic entity with many faces, multiple identities and various forms of co-operation. Today, however, […]
Social Europe articles on politics
Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher that publishes content examining issues in politics, economy and employment & labour. This archive brings together Social Europe articles on political issues.
EU drive for trade liberalisation adds to tensions in Tunisia
The European Union’s disproportionate pressure for trade liberalisation risks exacerbating political strains in the last democracy of northern Africa. Tunisia is the only country in northern Africa in which a democratic political system still prevails. The country has been undergoing a difficult transition since it initiated the ‘Arab spring’ in 2011. More recently, the tense […]
Does Zuzana Čaputová’s victory signal a new politics in Slovakia?
Zuzana Čaputová emerged as the winner from Slovakia’s presidential election. Although viewed as a step away from populist and nationalist politics, the battle for the country’s political future is only just beginning. Slovakia’s presidential election was fought a year after a young journalist, Ján Kuciak—who had investigated what turned out to be a high-profile fraud […]
Emissions inequality—a gulf between global rich and poor
When it comes to responsibility for global greenhouse-gas emissions, some are more equal than others. The American congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently shook up environmental politics by releasing a broad outline of a Green New Deal—a plan to make the US a carbon-neutral economy in the next ten years, while reducing both poverty and inequality. Lauded […]
The new spirit of postcapitalism
Capitalism emerged in the interstices of feudalism and Paul Mason finds a prefiguring of postcapitalism in the lifeworld of the contemporary European city. Raval, Barcelona, March 2019. The streets are full of young people (and not just students)—sitting, sipping drinks, gazing more at laptops than into each other’s eyes, talking quietly about politics, making art, […]
‘Full and good employment’ and reviving the European ideal
The logic of a Euro-Keynesian recovery, towards socially useful full employment, leads inexorably to a rediscovery of wider European political ambition. Within the Democratic Party in the United States there is a flourishing of initiatives, promoted by Bernie Sanders, regarding ‘guaranteed work’. This recognises the urgency to concentrate every effort on the revival of public […]
Normalising fascism in the EU
Uproar followed comments by the Italian president of the European Parliament in qualified praise of Mussolini. They raise big questions about the direction of the European centre right. March 23rd marked the centenary of the establishment of the Italian fasci of combat, Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement. It later became the National Fascist Party, paving the […]
How to govern a digitally networked world
Because the internet is a network of networks, its governing structures should be too. The world needs a digital co-governance order that engages public, civic and private leaders. Governments built the current systems and institutions of international cooperation to address 19th- and 20th-century problems. But in today’s complex and fast-paced digital world, these structures cannot […]
PiS attacks LGBT+ rights in Poland, as elections loom
Amid simmering social discontent and with the Catholic Church wracked by sex-abuse scandals, Poland’s clerical-nationalist party is exploiting homophobia to drive a wedge into the opposition. In the run-up to this year’s European and national parliamentary elections, LGBT+ rights are dividing Polish politics. Speaking recently against their extension, the leader of the ruling, right-wing Law […]
Memory, myth and ‘post-truth’
In the era of ‘post-truth’, history isn’t what it used to be—which makes solving the problems of the present so much more difficult. Collective memory has always been a symbolic political battleground. Historians and politicians have long been aware that shared representations of the past constrain political choices in the present by shaping communal ‘horizons […]
In Turkey economic recession hardly makes the news
As Turkey goes to the polls amid recession, Erdoğan’s control over the media may be his strongest asset. On March 31st, Turkey will have local elections. In a country with weak local government, these will not change much in people’s lives. But they will serve as a barometer of the political mood. Will Turkey’s economic troubles […]
Restoring trust in Europe—wage rises and workplace democracy
Flatlining wages, denial of workplace voice and precarity are undermining trust in Europe—and assisting the siren calls of the populists. Europe’s economy has been expanding for six straight years and more people are getting jobs. The crisis is fading from memory and austerity is easing off. So why aren’t Europeans happier? And why, in all […]
