Social Europe articles on politics

When it comes to responsibility for global greenhouse-gas emissions, some are more equal than others.

Menstruation clearly makes for a substantial part of life, so why is it still taboo in discussions of work environment and work-life balance? In 2018, the Swedish organisation MENSEN—forum för menstruation received funding from the Swedish Gender Equality Agency for a one-year project dealing with menstruation from a work perspective. Through the project, which is […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Karin Pettersson begins a series of Social Europe columns by arguing it’s time to rethink ‘free’ data as the product of labour. Recently I attended a seminar in Stockholm on the Future of Work, hosted by a major trade union. A representative from Google was present and asked the seemingly sweet and constructive question: what […]

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 […]

Flatlining wages, denial of workplace voice and precarity are undermining trust in Europe—and  assisting the siren calls of the populists.

If Europe’s democratic architecture is cracking, it is because its foundations are weakening. Solidarity is one of them.   ‘Western democracy is in crisis.’ Many pundits and scholars rehearse this narrative, in which the rise of populism and illiberalism are presented as challenging national democracies and the European Union. To address this challenge, it is […]