Political Critique Archive

One Question is a monthly series in which the leading thinkers are asked to give a brief answer to a single question. This month’s question: What is the Left case for open borders? Tithi Bhattacharya Professor of History at Purdue University. She is the editor of Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression (Pluto, 2017) and along […]

I have been involved with cultural diversity work, one way or another, since I first arrived in Europe from Jamaica in 1951. My arrival was more or less coterminous with the onset of those post-war migrations which initiated the contemporary history of, triggered the debate about the ‘cultural diversity’ idea. They marked the formation of […]

After three months of peaceful protests against a controversial construction project and in defense of preserving a nearly century-old cypress park in the center of Bar, a port city on Montenegro’s coast, it looks like the battle has been lost. However, Sonja Dragović tells us with this article, activists are not giving up: by responding to the […]

Last week saw a historical first: courts have decided on a sentence for terrorism committed in the Czech Republic. In a country running on xenophobia and intolerance rallying behind the banner of defense against terrorism, it is rather telling that the whole case held absolutely no consequence and (possibly because) the terrorist was a home-grown […]

The past decade in Europe is at one level that of a decadent, unimaginative and sometimes mendacious elite unable to fully understand, let alone properly address, multiplying crises. This is the history from above of the European Union. But there is also another story which has largely been outside of the interest of the media: […]

It’s over a month now that hundred and thousand students are protesting in Albania against what they call “the commercialization of knowledge and of student life”, a series of neoliberal reforms in higher education undertaken by the Socialist Party who governs in Albania since 2013. Students first have taken the streets to express their revolt, […]

This article was originally published by Carnegie Europe as part of its Reshaping European Democracy project, an initiative of Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program and Carnegie Europe. Most debates about democracy in the EU overlook a crucial dimension of reform: democratizing the global workplace. The EU’s reform agenda must focus on the underlying political economy of […]

Not many people know the name Maria Eugenia Jasińska. This young Polish woman, who was executed by the Nazis in 1943, has, like many other women in war, a story that deserves telling but is known by far too few. Having been involved in girl scouts from a young age, Jasińska became a member of […]

In October 2008 Iceland went bankrupt. Its three biggest banks defaulted, their combined assets were worth more than 10 times the national GDP, and the state couldn’t bail them out. Instead, Iceland itself would have to be bailed out by the IMF and the Nordic and other European countries. As a consequence of the collapse, […]

On Sunday 13 January, Mayor of Gdansk Pawel Adamowicz was stabbed while on stage at a live charity event. He died in hospital the following day. The tragic event shook Poland and sent waves across the world. Many saw it as a consequence of the heated political climate present in Poland after over three years under the ultra-conservative and […]