debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Nothing endangers globalization more than the yawning governance gap – the dangerous disparity between the national scope of political accountability and the global nature of markets for goods, capital, and many services – that has opened up in recent decades. When markets transcend national regulation, as with today’s globalization of finance, market failure, instability, and [...]
It is not easy to detect where the euro debate stands after coming back from a holiday in India. In fact the euro crisis was hardly mentioned in the The Hindu, one of the most important Indian newspapers. However, I think there is a tangible game change happening this year. Still, we are faced with many [...]
The financial crisis risks destroying half a century of European integration. It is primarily a political and not an economic crisis and only a different political solution can solve it. The problem is the intergovernmental system of governance: Member states’ governments take decisions jointly, but each government pursues its own partial interests. Hence, political integration [...]
Winning progressive parties in the 1990s were those that had learnt the lessons of the 1980s: that division, disorganisation and an obsession with a core left vote was no way to win. As a consequence from Blair and New Labour to Schroeder and the SPD’s Neue Mitte, progressive parties in the ‘90s embraced change through [...]
When the votes were counted after the re-election in the northeastern constituency of Örebro, the Social Democrats increased their votes in all electoral districts in the area, with a total of 47.2% of the votes. In no part of the constituency the result was less than 30.6% (which is what the Social Democrats received nationally [...]
Political parties connect citizens to the state. For this reason, any political party at the EU level is going to find itself in an unusual situation as the EU is currently not a state. How then should the Party of European Socialists (PES) aim to connect with citizens and how can it make itself relevant [...]
Memos to the Left for the Progressive Governance Conference in Oslo, 12-13 May ‘’The 21st is the century of empowered citizens. The last thing they want is to be told what to do. If modern social democrats fall prey to the conservative politics of paternalism, upset citizens will extract their revenge at the voting booth. [...]
Media reporting on surveillance and policing tends to feed an image of the state as all powerful, all knowing. British citizens are the object of constant monitoring by an intrusive, illiberal state that is intent on maximising control over its population. In academic literature, the notion of the surveillance state is heavily influenced by Michel [...]
All Content