debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
There has been much talk about the crisis of social democracy and the shortcomings of the progressive agenda as the key explanation. Without disputing the priority of designing the right programme, I’d like to stress another important factor: the collapse of communities. Our societies are increasingly fragmented. Once large-scale communities make place for smaller groups [...]
It may have been established primarily as a political union, but especially in the new member states the EU is increasingly failing to convey the notion that it is a value-based political community as well, and not only a business club. An (understandably) materialistic mentality in the new member states may be partly to blame [...]
The government under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is seeking to frame the debate between itself and Hungary’s international partners, the EU and the IMF as the struggle between a valiant and democratically legitimated David (i.e. Viktor Orbán himself) and a multitude of sinister, illegitimately meddling Goliaths. Hungary won’t be told what to do by outsiders, [...]
It sometimes appears that politicians’ concerns about global warming overheating is inversely proportional to scientists’ fears. Even committed political players appear increasingly resigned to largely letting things run their course. They do so even though there are veritable doomsday scenarios associated with global warming, and even the more standard scientific fare predicts a significant decline [...]
Like most countries in the region, Hungary hasn’t had it easy. Democracy wasn’t quite the fluffy experience the abstract western examples had seemingly shown. The economy was downright awful and for the first post transition decade, and along with the market economy came widespread existential angst, which had previously been the sad privilege only of dissidents. Even [...]
In analysing a key organisational challenge for social democracy, I recently wrote that “[s]ocial democratic parties are for the most part unable to engage the identities of citizens; they are perceived as campaign vehicles and administrators of certain ideas rather than core institutions of an extended ideological community.” I promised to follow up on this [...]
When you talk about party organisation these days it sounds fairly simple. You get yourself a young (or youngish) candidate with a few novel (or seemingly novel) ideas, compile a team of professional campaigners, energise on-the-ground activists and undecideds and sweep the elections. Then everyone is sent home, the technocrats come in and four years [...]
Sitting in the presidential palace of an Arab country must feel like being a domino awaiting one’s turn to fall. Apart from trying to convince the military to remain loyal, sticking needles into a Mark Zuckerberg voodoo doll and checking the liquid worth of one’s portfolio, there is just not much one can do. The [...]
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of this historical period is that in spite of an amazing spate of social progress in many areas, that we seem to be backtracking in the crucial area of equality. It would have been both difficult and disappointing to anticipate in the 70s and 80s that a few decades later we [...]
At this point it’s probably safe to say that Hungary’s current government, led by the rightwing party Fidesz, has done more for the country’s international publicity than any other since regime transition. It’s probably not exactly what they had in mind when they decided to set up a centre to bolster Hungary’s national image, but [...]
A couple of years ago I wrote a report on the Polish elections of 2005. With characters and parties such as the (since then fortunately marginalised) extremist political loony Andrzej Lepper, the racist and homophobic League of Polish Families, and the populist Kaczynski twins taking over government, I mused in a private message how such [...]
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