Social Europe - Page 6

Why Reports of Sociology’s Public Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

Sociology has not surrendered its public voice to philosophy. It has lost the illusion that it speaks from nowhere.

Europe spends €2 trillion a year buying goods and services; treating that money as mere book-keeping squanders a decisive democratic lever.

Renewables have won the cost argument, yet poorer nations still pay a steep premium to deploy them.

Twenty-one of 27 member states saw their exports fall under Trump’s tariffs; the EU’s strongest lever is its own single market.

Conservatives who deride “isms” are not transcending ideology — they are smuggling theirs in unexamined.

Austerity packages reduce approval, drive protests, and raise the odds of a government crisis — especially in downturns.

As Washington turns transactional and Beijing rises, Europe must convert its economic weight into genuine strategic power.

The bloc has swapped Russian pipelines for American tankers — without breaking its addiction to imported fossil fuels.

As modernity falters, sociology cannot diagnose the society it once helped define — and philosophy has taken its place.

Across federalist, fiscal and deliberative proposals, Europe’s reformers keep deferring the one question integration cannot bypass.

Targeted infrastructure spending dampens AfD vote growth in Germany’s transition-pressured regions, but innovation funding still bypasses them.

European law forces 40 per cent gender balance on listed boardrooms but exempts the cabinets that actually wield public power.

Three former European Commissioners warn that scrapping social protections in pursuit of competitiveness will leave the Union weaker, not stronger.

Without large-scale joint debt and deeper safe-asset markets, the euro cannot capitalise on Trump’s assault on dollar credibility.

As eyewitnesses fade and the far right reframes liberation as defeat, EU institutions must answer with policy.