Issue 09/2011
Essay
The European Union and the Dilemmas of the Radical Left
„... the task arises is not merely to criticize the policy of the ruling classes [...] from the standpoint of the existing society itself, but also to contrast existing society as its every move with the socialist ideal of...[more]
Europe: No Future?
Europe in the Centre of the New Phase of the Big Crisis
We are in the deepest crisis in the history of the European Union. Only if both the governments of member-states and European institutions act decisively, can we get out of it. European countries can only regain their credibility...[more]
The Crisis of Europe: Elements of a Political Strategy
At the time of this writing, Europe is becoming increasingly unstable and no one can predict the scenario of the coming weeks. It is safe to predict that we are heading for a series of tragedies. The great crisis that we are...[more]
Austerity, Debt, Social Destruction in Europe: Stop! Coordinate Our Strengths – Democratic Alternatives
European Conference, May 31, 2001 (Brussels) in Partnership with the GUE/NGL Parliamentary Group After September 2010 forces involved in the European Social Forum and in European social mobilisations wished to organise this...[more]
Organic Crisis of Financial-Market Capitalism: Scenarios, Conflicts, Competing Projects
Preliminary Remark “Upswing XXL” was recently proclaimed, and now the ruling elites are not getting their well-earned vacation. Every just acquired and announced “solution” of each most recent crisis is always out of date a few...[more]
Crash as Cash Can – Crises, Bubbles, Speculators – 1929 and Today
In autumn 2008 the world experienced a financial crash, which brought the financial markets to the outer edge of collapse. Then peace returned (or more accurately: organised pacification), until another issue gave new cause for...[more]
The Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy in Greece Tracing Ruptures and Indicating Tendencies in the Memorandum Policies
In what follows we will analyse the general impact of Memorandum policies adopted one year ago and that of the measures introduced by the Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy Law this summer. Given the fact that both the Memorandum recipe...[more]
Reforms in the Czech Republic – Towards Social Darwinism
The current situation in the Czech Republic is quite tense. Once again, twenty years after the so-called Velvet Revolution, citizens are asked to “tighten their belts” – however, this time not with the perspective that better...[more]
Europe and the World on the Move
The Peculiarities of the Greek Crisis: Democracy, Protest and Contention in Syntagma Square
This article attempts to illustrate the particularities of the Greek movement organised against the austerity measures, imposed by the government under the auspices of the EU and the IMF. Apart from its economic demands, the...[more]
May 15 and the Spanish Revolution
In Spain the crisis of 2007/2008 marked the end of a long political cycle. Since the 1980s, a big centre coalition tried to build a modern welfare state on the ruins of a destroyed labour society and to finance it through...[more]
Fluid Democracy: The Italian Water Revolution
From Commons to the referendum[more]
Chile - The Constitution and the Crisis of Education: A Decisive Battle
This summer’s student demonstrations detonated the major social explosion our country is experiencing today after 17 years of an authoritarian regime and two decades of dashed hopes. Over and above this series of events that, in...[more]
“The People Demand Social Justice!” - A Huge Social Protest in Israel
Less than a year ago, the whole Arab Region, from Tunisia in the West to Yemen in the South East, was the arena of a gigantic and extraordinary popular uprising for freedom and democracy. The decades-old dictatorships of Hosni...[more]
Egypt - After the Revolution is Before the Revolution
Sure, we were all happy. And of course we celebrated. The whole world was watching Egypt. We were enormously proud. But then? The Egyptians have returned to daily life, which has become much more difficult than before, because...[more]
Egypt - Will the Fire in the Israeli Embassy Spread to the Whole Region?
September 9, 2011: The Israeli Embassy was in flames yesterday. Angry demonstrators broke down the protective wall surrounding the building and set it on fire. As a precaution, the Israeli ambassador has left the country. The...[more]
On the Far Right
Right-Wing Populism in Europe
In many discussions the increase of extreme right-wing and right-wing populist parties in a growing number of European countries is regarded as if it were only a matter of parallel individual national phenomena. But there is also...[more]
Netherlands - Understanding the Wilders Phenomenon
It is said that the German writer Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) once remarked that if a revolution were to break out in Germany, he would flee to the Netherlands, since there everything happens fifty years later. Whereas this...[more]
Norway - From Meta-Politics to Mass Murder – A New Right-Wing Extremism
The massacre on the island of Utøya and the attack in Oslo’s government district targeting the Scandinavian labour movement was horrible, the worst kind of right-wing terrorist act. How could it happen? How could such an...[more]
Right-wing Populism in Germany too? A European Trend and its Special German Features
The wave of right-wing populist electoral successes continues to sweep across Europe: Scandinavia is now completely riddled with parties of this type. Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, not to mention other...[more]
Country Reports
The Turning Point In Italian Politics: The Victory Of The Centre-Left In The Milan Elections
Preliminary remarks During these days of August and September 2011 there has been much discussion in Italy of the famous “moral issue” in politics, naturally not only regarding the corruption and the intertwining of business and...[more]
Danish Elections – New Government
A new Danish government was formed on October 3rd, consisting of three parties: It is led by the Social Democrats – the other participants are the Liberal Democrats (”Det Radikale Venstre”) and the Socialist People’s Party – SF....[more]
The LINKE after the Elections of 2011
The Berlin elections of September 2011 were the last in this year’s election cycle of seven regional and two communal elections. On the positive side, the LINKE has been able to assert itself as a political force for social...[more]
France: The Left Front – The Challenge of a True Popular Dynamism
As everyone knows, in the 2005 referendum the French people rejected the European Constitutional Treaty. What had enabled this success was that, for the first time, forces opposed to neoliberalism worked together and created a...[more]
Book Review - Persecution: The Austrian §278a as an Example
It is not certain if the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001 were the kick-off for the rollercoaster ride the financial markets have been on ever since. This careening up- and...[more]
Workers’ Self-management in Yugoslavia – An Ambivalent Experience
In the discussion of an alternative economic order the terms “producers’ democracy” and “workers’ self-management” are inseparably bound up with the “Yugoslav experiment”. The “Third Way” of Yugoslav socialism acted as an...[more]
New Challenges Confronting the Progressive Governments of South America
In the course of a seminar organised by the São Paulo Forum from June 30 to July 2 at Rio, which brought together ministers, political leaders and research workers from about ten Latin American countries (eight of which were in...[more]
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journal transform 09/2011