The sweeping reform programme of Viktor Orbán's Hungarian government is provoking alarm among its domestic critics and European partners alike. But its economic policies as well as its political ambitions deserve to be put under the microscope, says Anton Pelinka.
The portrayal of Hungary and its current government by the international media and external actors is one-sided and lacks context, says the academic and Fidesz member of the European parliament, György Schöpflin. The effects are felt within the country, and raise deeper questions about the Europea
France's disillusion extends beyond the country's president to its political class, economy and sense of social direction. The beneficiaries may include the far-right Marine Le Pen as well as the centre-left François Hollande, says Patrice de Beer.
The government of Hungary led by Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party is alarming many by its establishment of ever-greater control over the country’s institutions and public life. A group of thirteen Hungarian intellectuals and public figures, who opposed Hungary’s communist regime in the 1970s - am
The refusal of Italy's official agencies to acknowledge the extent of racist crime in the country reinforces the damage inflicted on its victims, says Judith Sunderland.
A failed bank robbery on November 4 this year, exposed a cell in eastern Germany calling itself the “National Socialist Underground”, apparently responsible for the murder of at least ten people, most of them immigrants, among other acts of violence over the last decade. Together with the murder o
The severe economic upheaval in Europe has not been matched by a political resurgence of the radical right. Cas Mudde asks why - and whether the dog could yet bark.
The world has been changed by the securitisation of everyday life and the Islamisation of security. The accompanying threat-complex has shifted American sensibilities, says Cas Mudde.
However nuanced, it is striking how little extant interpretations attend to the fact that Breivik’s most grotesque violence was not directed at Muslims or immigrants as such but at the youth members of the Norwegian Social Democrats.
The deadly attacks in Norway are fuelling debate about multiculturalism, immigration, security and radicalisation. But more attention must also be paid to the behaviours and attitudes that underlie extreme political violence, says Sara Silvestri.
The political response to atrocity often misjudges its character in ways that lead to further violations. This makes it all the more important that reaction to the bombing and massacre in Norway is based on careful assessment, says Cas Mudde.
The massacre in Norway cannot be ascribed only to the killer’s mental derangement. It also reflects the everyday nourishment of fear and hatred in the political arena, says Petter Nome.
