Political Critique Archive

Progressives – especially in the West and South – should recognise the unprecedented role and the historic transformation of NGOs in the East, accept the Eastern third sector as a political partner, and urgently form alliances with progressive parts of civil society in Central-Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

In your latest book The Lure of Greatness you argue that Brexit was an English phenomenon. Can you explain what you mean by this? Brexit and Trump were explosions. Each was the result of both a revolt against and a breakdown of the existing order. A number of causes were at work. But the detonation […]

They work like the middle class, and they take drugs like the middle class too.

Political Critique’s weekly selection from the Eastern European press.

This Friday and Saturday, Czechs will head to the polls to decide how to face the winds of change.

To take back control we need neither to retreat to existing nation-states nor to replicate the nation state’s authoritarian structures at a smaller, regional level.

The unrelenting challenges of overwhelming technological development entail a future of despair for large parts of our species. Alienated in an interconnected world, condemned to be forgotten, hampered by inequality and unemployment, we are now experiencing the shock waves of globalisation. Our labour —our primary means of survival — is central to the current crisis. […]

Citizens of Brno („Brno blokuje”) block the March of far right extremists (DSSS). Brno, Czech Republic

“I returned, numbed. I returned unable to ignore or accept what everybody (including myself) has, over the years, gradually accepted and successfully ignored”. Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living In stark contrast to its economic growth, which see it rank first in the EU in Q1 of 2017, it would be fair to say that […]

Supporters of the Polish National Radical Camp (ONR) march through the streets of Warsaw to commemorate the nationalist movement’s foundation 83 years ago.