‘I am a migrant’ solidarity signs were displayed during the European Parliament debate on immigration and asylum in the Strasbourg plenary.
European Parliament/flickr
Fraternity is one of the three pillars of the French Republic, but social solidarity is fraying as citizens are criminalised for acting on their beliefs in the human rights of asylum seekers.
Can Europe prove that it’s capable of finding energy in its contradictions and differences and reinvent itself as a place the whole world respects?
William Murphy/flickr
According to German public intellectual Claus Offe, Europe faces multiple crises but is not down and out yet.
By engaging a broad base of people on a popular level, film has a much more immediate and visceral impact than formal lustration proceedings.
Before the Rain (1994)
Cinema can be instrumental in opening up dialogue on collective culpability for the past. Manchevski’s Before the Rain and Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze are perfect examples of this.
Podemos must reconsider who is above and who is below – who are the people and who are the people’s enemy.
Podemos Uviéu/flickr
Podemos positioned itself as leading a revolt by the people against the political system. Now, as Spain’s third-largest party, it is part of that system and has some difficult decisions to make.
Italians voted “No” by a convincing margin in the referendum on constitutional change.
In a climate of widespread discontent with Italy’s political establishment, a new election might wipe out most of the parties in the current government coalition.
To understand whether the referendum will plunge Italy into a crisis, we need to unpack the problem in its three essential components: the reform; the Renzi’s factor; and the country’s economy.
After 1992, the transformation of the Italian left was slow and subtle, but by no means less detrimental to the quality of the country’s democratic system.
Silvio Berlusconi’s rise to power, hand in hand with his monopoly of mainstream media, made the Internet the favourite harbour for nonaligned audiences and dissident voices.
This article is part of the Democracy Futures series, a joint global initiative with the Sydney Democracy Network. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies…
1992 was one of the worst years in Italy’s recent history: mafia’s bombs, corruption scandals and the rise of Berlusconi to power.
Some fear that Chinese investment will lead to a painful trade-off between Ukraine’s desperate economic needs and its long-standing democratic dream.
Sasha Maksymenko/flickr
Ukraine desperately needs Chinese investment but, like many other countries in this position, this is giving rise to concerns about the consequences for its fragile democracy.
Without democratic reform, the time ahead for both Britain and the EU looks bleak indeed.
Gary Knight/flickr
The Brexit vote was the outcome of the disillusionment and disengagement that have permeated the UK. Many Europeans share that mood, which is why both the UK and EU need radical democratic surgery.
Austrian Freedom Party presidential candidate Norbert Hofer took the far right to the brink of victory in the recent election.
Reuters
Radical right populists are on the brink of power in Austria and making gains across the region. And the European leaders who once were willing to publicly condemn them are silent now.
There is no better alternative than the rise of the populist left for Europe and beyond.
The People's Assembly Against Austerity
The future of democracy depends on developing a left-wing populism that can revive public interest by mobilising political passions in the fight for an alternative to neoliberal de-democratisation.
The Irish government is presented with a difficult task of how to commemorate the Easter Rising, 100 years on.
Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Often it has been Ireland’s writers and artists that have called out the hopes and failures of national politics, holding the polity to account in the culture.
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and Pablo Iglesias of Podemos have taken their populist parties to victory in Greece and a lead in the polls in Spain.
Flickr/Fanis Xouryas
The rise of left-wing populism challenges those who flatly denounced right-wing populism as undemocratic. Populism can appear as a democratic force in some contexts and anti-democratic in others.
Salafi mosques are among the few to reach out to local converts in Europe.
EPA/Julian Stratenschulte
Esra Özyürek, London School of Economics and Political Science
Governments in Europe have been horrified to see their young nationals turning to extremist groups and committing terrible acts in their name, but few have stopped to think about how their own policies…
Reflecting rising resentment of European austerity policies, people from Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece protested in 2011 at the European Central Bank.
EPA/Frank Rumpenhorst
European integration has been an enormous success since its inception in the Treaty of Rome in 1957. For the next five decades European Union (EU) member states enjoyed unprecedented peace and prosperity…
One of the attempts made by the parliament to engage young voters. Oddly, it doesn’t appear to have been a roaring success.
European Parliament
“This time it’s different,” promised the European Parliament in an awareness campaign ahead of the May 2014 elections. And, judging by the headlines, it certainly has been different. Many in the media…
Senior Lecturer and Director of the SITADHub (Social Impact Technologies and Democracy Research Hub) in the School of Communication, University of Technology Sydney