Journal

Editorial

Ten issues, five years.

With  the appearance of this issue transform! magazine completes its fifth year of existence and its tenth issue. This anniversary is an occasion for an assessment. In their editorial for the first edition, Michael Brie and Walter Baier outlined the coalescence of left forces shaped by diversity with the following words: “transform! europe was founded in 2001 to initiate and promote alternative thinking and political dialogue aimed at transforming contemporary society according to social, feminist, ecological, democratic and pacifist values. During the complicated though necessary processes of 'Europeanisation' of the Left taking place within a neoliberal dominated...

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Contents

• About the Left

• • Left Strategy

  • By Bob Jessop

  • Conjunctural analysis is useful in many fields but has special theoretical and practical significance for...
• • The Crisis of Europe: Elements of a Political Strategy

  • By Francisco Louçã

  • Many of our friends have been asking the following question over the past few months: What if Portugal was to leave the Eurozone? Should I withdraw my savings, should I look for a foreign bank to...
• • Thoughts on a Timely Narrative for the Left

  • By Dieter Klein

  • "Without a story every battle is lost”, formulated the authors of the Wu Ming group, whose name demonstrators in Rome had on their shields which protected them from the police clubs. With the naming...
• • The Impossibilities of Reformism
  • Introduction...

• Democracy at Stake

• • From Oligarchy to the New Challenge of Global Politics

  • By Hervé Kempf

  • Most analysts and citizens of Western society suppose that we live in a democracy. ...
• • Peril from the Right

  • By Walter Baier

  • Introduction1 Many serious observers hold that the crisis in Europe has not come to an end. With the restructuring of the Greek national debt and the enlargement of the European Stability Mechanism,...
• • The EU – The Flight From Democracy

  • By Francesco Russo

  • 1. Facts and documents As in every crisis, capitalism’s ruling elites, in order, among other things, to manage the current economic-financial crisis, are redesigning the institutions, which is what...
• • Democracy in Crisis

  • By Konstaninos Tsoukalas

  • Let me begin this article with an initial claim. The current crisis does not pertain solely to the performance of economic indicators and to the functioning of economic institutions. Rather it is also...

• Struggles for Democracy

• • Economic Democracy – An Alternative for Europe?

  • By Joachim Bischoff , Richard Detje

  • Updating considerations of economic democracy does not happen by mere coincidence, but represents historically specific attempts1 to provide answers to fundamental processes of transformation in times...
• • What Science for What Democracy?

  • By Janine Guespin-Michel

  • The expression “science and democracy” has been spreading. Its meaning, consequently, is becoming polysemous. Is there, on the one hand, an eternal “science” (more or less fantasised) and, on the...
• • Trade Unions: International Solidarity in Action

  • By Christian Pilichowski

  • International solidarity can be understood as cooperation between trade-union organisations that, by their nature, share the same objectives because they represent the workers of their countries. It...
• • The Left, the Youth and the Political Project

  • By Michel Vakaloulis

  • Interview with Rena Dourou

• Europe: Crisis and Alternatives

• • Working Towards the Social and -Democratic Refoundation of Europe

  • By Walter Baier , Elisabeth Gauthier

  • Brussels, March 2012: Towards an Alternative European Summit

• • Women Facing Crisis and Austerity

  • By Christiane Marty

  • The crisis has very negative effects on society as a whole, especially on women. The austerity policies established in Europe are making the populations pay by sparing those responsible, namely the...
• • Growing Income Inequality and Increasing Concentration of Property in Austria: How to Reverse?

  • By Peter Fleissner

  • The increasing inequality of wages and the extremes in the distribution of property in Austria inspire the disgust of the majority of people. More and more it has become evident that the political...
• • Can We Design a European New Deal for the 21st Century?

  • By Jacques Rigaudiat

  • Can we design a “New Deal” for our European Union countries that are in profound crisis? And – because to me, this is the real, underlying question – to what practical end? Aside from being an...
• • A Progressive European Response to the Crisis in the Euro Area

  • By Trevor Evans

  • The growth of private international financial institutions since the 1970s has seriously curtailed the ability of national governments to exercise democratic control over economic policy. This was...
• • Plea for a European Minimum Wage
  • Europe is heading at full speed toward a second edition of the financial crisis. Greece must once again be saved from “bankruptcy”; again the crisis involves generalised cuts and privatisation. What...
• • The Triumph of Failed Ideas

  • By Steffen Lehndorff

  • Introduction to the book "A triumph of failed ideas. European models of capitalism in the crisis" which contains ten country analyses provide insights into national ways of coping - or failing to cope - with the ongoing crisis.

• • Resisting Financial Dictatorship – Reclaiming Democracy and Social Rights!

  • Political declaration & coordinated actions – JSC 2012

• Migration

• • The Migrations of Roma in the European Union – an Ethnic Minority as the Sport of European Politics

  • By Manuela Kropp , Anna Striethorst

  • France is sending Roma back to Romania, Roma are “voluntarily” leaving the country to go to Macedonia, Czech Roma are seeking asylum in Canada – these headlines of recent years have repeatedly drawn...
• • Immigration Is Good, Immigration Is Bad, Migration Is (a Fact)

  • By Ulrike Kruh

  • A Human Drama in Three Acts and a Few Ideas

• • European Migration Policy – Too Much of the Same

  • By Cornelia Ernst , Lorenz Krämer

  • When in a European context immigration is talked about it usually does not take long before the name FRONTEX pops up. Migration is mostly mentioned in the same breath as “illegal” and “illegal...
• • Immigration Policies in Italy – Rights, Movements and Imprisonment

  • By Dario Stefano Dell’ Aquila

  • This brief article proposes to do three things: first, to delineate the main features of immigration policies in Italy; second, to evaluate the effects of these features; and third, to outline a...

• Elections

• • Pirates in Berlin – On the Success of the Piratenpartei in the Berlin State Parliament Elections

  • By Horst Kahrs

  • One is on shaky ground if one tries to say something about the success and further prospects of the Pirate Party in Germany – because in Germany’s party landscape it is a new phenomenon, different...
• • Colored, But No Revolution

  • By Tiina Fahrni

  • The Russian Opposition Movement is Gradually Abating after Putin’s Victory

• Country Reports

• • Austerity Policy in Hungary

  • By Tamás Morva

  • Recently Hungary appears much more often in the western media than ever before, usually, in critical articles that mention the Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and refer to the activity of the government...
• • What Democracy? The New Egypt Gets Back Into the Rut

  • By Gabriele Habashi

  • Immediately after the revolution, Egyptians were full of hope. From now on, democracy was sure to reign in this country oppressed by sixty years of military rule. The people had managed to topple the...
• • China: New Perspectives After the Great Strikes of 2010

  • By Dominique Vidal-Bari

  • China, which has become a major actor in liberal globalisation, is at a real turning point in its development. The restructuring of its economy has profoundly transformed the nature of labour...
• • The West’s War against Libya and its Outcome

  • By Erhard Crome

  • After the end of the East-West-conflict, the countries of the West saw themselves as winners. Subsequently, they made war – limited local wars against weaker countries – into a “normal” means of...

• Additional articles (lang specific)

• • Präsidentschaftswahlen in Ägypten

  • By Mamdouh Habashi

  • In Ägypten brachte im Mai 2012 die erste Runde der ersten Präsidentschaftswahlen nach der Revolution, bei der nur ca. 43,4 Prozent der wahlberechtigten Ägypter zur Wahl gegangen waren, einige...
• • Le Front de gauche au miroir de Syriza

  • By Philippe Marlière

  • Philippe Marlière, Enseignant-chercheur en sciences politiques à l’University College de Londres, spécialiste des idées et mouvements de gauche en France et en Europe Les partis membres du Parti de...