After a strong showing in the 2012 French Presidential election, Jean-Luc Melenchon took on Marine Le Pen in Henin-Beaumont, a former mining community near the northern town of Lille, in the French legislative elections held in the same year. These were his thoughts as expressed in his popular blo
The European left should be the most committed and consistent advocate of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in order to prevent discrimination. But further than that, it should espouse a cosmopolitan politics to manage diversity in a progressive manner. And that politics is inconceivable
Northern Ireland is held up as an exemplary case study of building sustainable peace. Recent violent activity from dissident republicans poses real threats, but isn't likely to establish a 32 county republic. So why continue?
The military approach, sole government policy since the 1980s, has failed. Hawkish voices are no longer able to dominate discussion and portray the Kurdish question solely as a security issue. Can a solution best be found through democratic means?
The exasperation of the domestic public has placed significant pressure on Greek politicians to put a halt to treating elite corruption with impunity. Unfortunately this has been pressure which they have proved overwhelmingly able to resist, notwithstanding the indictment of a former Minister of D
Specific patterns of ‘hate’ are emerging and the far right is mobilising and making inroads in smaller towns and cities: often rural places, once-industrial, where the experience of marked inequalities and relatively recent demographic change go hand in hand.
The rise to political power of the Ukrainian far right party, Svoboda, was recently halted by a new electoral law. But there are further security issues connected to the far right's increasing support that have not been stopped in their tracks.
The threat of far right terrorism and political violence ought to be taken at least as seriously as the radical Islamic one. Obstacles include the false belief that far right violence is local and not globally connected.
An attack on Israeli tourists in the Black Sea resort of Burgas is a moment of profound alarm for Bulgaria. It also highlights changes in the country’s international profile, says Dimitar Bechev in Sofia.
Populist right-wing politicians expressing extreme views on immigration, Islam and Muslims, have in general been confronted in the mediated public spheres to a much greater extent than before 22/7, as have extreme-right wingers. But how much else has moved on?
The western Balkans are caught between internal dynamics acting to couple borders with national myth-making, and post-modern Europeanizing forces hoping to nurture cosmopolitan polities.
