The retreat to nationalism and militant identity politics is counter to the process of accommodation that has underpinned European and world peace since the end of the Second World War.
Deepening interdependence, due in part to the success of the postwar order, has contributed to an anti-global backlash across the world. Beyond Gridlock, (Polity Press, 2017) seeks pathways of change through the gridlock.
At issue is due process, the rule of law and the division of powers that defines American democracy.
The years since 9/11 have cast a dark shadow over global politics in many respects. But we have the option of recalling where the pursuit of authoritarianism leads.
Four years after Romney lost to Obama, Trump, travelling in a private plane with a gold-plated bathroom, has been embraced by the working class as a man of the people.
How much we can do for ‘distant strangers’ is of course a matter of great controversy: most would accept that our role should not be limited to that of spectators.
The alternative is to recover the constitutive elements of the politics of accommodation, the core ideas of democratic public life mediated by the rule of law and accountable to all citizens.
The referendum is at the centre of these shifting plates. It is the crack which can become a chasm in the postwar order.
In the short term, Europe can only survive as a way of solving common problems, worth having insofar as the EU stabilises crises and protects the economic wellbeing of its citizens.
ISIS fighters must be held to account as criminals, not conventional military adversaries, for their violent crimes. Snared by geopolitical interests, post-9/11 interventions have too easily been captured by leading states.
Labour's problems cannot be fixed by minor tweaks. They need to address the big questions.
These are policies that, whilst having a humanitarian veneer, radically exacerbate the burdens of migrants and displaced persons from and in countries like Libya, Syria, Eritrea, and Somalia, alike.
