politics, economy and employment & labour
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.
In Europe, the populist Pandora’s box has been opened. From Athens to Dresden, Paris to Madrid, we are seeing strong signs of a people’s revolt against the established order everywhere. A pan-European crisis of political trust and representation comes to the surface, focussing mainly on the presumed dark sides of migration and European integration. Nearly […]
For most of its history, the Federal Republic of Germany proved to be a blank space on the map of European right-wing populism. The rise of the euro(pe)sceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) could change this. Having come up just short of crossing the five percent threshold in the 2013 federal elections, the newcomer achieved its […]
Nationalism has come to be associated with attempts by majority ethnic groups to exclude and persecute minorities. Not only is this detestable, it is quite clearly an abuse of the term: an attempt to appropriate for one component of a society, a designation which by definition must include the whole. In effect, exclusionary nationalism asserts […]
Many protest movements grow up first of all well away from the glare of public attention. They create an infrastructure of communication and mobilization, gradually expand the number of their supporters and their public appearances and, thereby, finally, gain national or even international visibility. The labour movement, women’s movement and ecological movement are examples of […]
UKIP’s recent success has triggered a cry of pain from liberal Britain. But responsibility for the rise of this modern populism lies substantially at the door of those self-same liberals. To borrow from Tony Blair any sensible response that wants to be tough on UKIP must be tough on the causes of UKIP. And what […]
Europe has had a rocky start to 2015. The Eurozone crisis is back on the agenda, a war is developing at Europe’s border and people across the continent seem more and more discontent with their political systems leading to the rise of different forms of populism. How healthy do you think is European democracy? Who […]
How has this “anti-Islamisation” movement managed to mobilise huge crowds in less than three months? Catrin Nye reports her experience of attending one the the marches in January. The noisiest bit of the Pegida march is the brief moment, at a Dresden tram intersection, at which demonstrators meet their opposition, something the German police have blocked along most of the […]
The European social model, virtually forgotten since the 2000s, is making a long-overdue comeback as the effects of the 2008 financial crisis continue to damage European society and exacerbate inequality levels. But this welcome change coincides with significant upheavals in the Nordic model, always seen as “best-in-class”. This has elemental consequences for Europe’s trade unions. […]
The Pegida demonstrations in Dresden have attracted a lot of international media attention and raised considerable concerns about social peace inside Germany. Many people simply cannot understand why Pegida are warning about a so-called Islamisation of the West in a state, Saxony, with so few Muslims; Muslims make up only around 5% of the entire population […]
Fears about the impact of technology on the labor market are nothing new. In the early nineteenth century, a group of English textile workers known as the Luddites worried that new technologies like power looms and spinning frames would cost them their jobs. They protested by smashing the machines. Today, anxiety that new technologies could […]
In the last two weeks, the two crises confronting Europe – in Ukraine and Greece – both escalated. In each case, Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel, were at the heart of efforts to achieve a diplomatic resolution. This is a new role for Germany, and the country is not yet accustomed to it. The […]
People are insecure. Young people worry about getting a decent job, finding a secure home and having to pay off the vast debts run up in the decade of uber-liberal economic policies of European governments to 2007. Elderly people worry about their security in old age, access to decent health care, about their children getting […]
