Europe Archives - Page 7 of 15

Feature

The New-Old Terror Wave in Europe (Part 2)

A Comparison of European Terrorism Cycles

September 13, 2017 • by Emmanuel Guerisoli

It seems, then, that Europe is currently in a new expansionist phase of this latest cycle of terror. Putting aside the isolated case of the El Descanso restaurant bombing in Madrid in 1985 by the Lebanese Islamic Jihad, Jihadi violence reached Europe in late 1994 when the Armed Islamic Group ...

Feature

The New-Old Terror Wave in Europe (Part 1)

A Comparison of European Terrorism Cycles

September 12, 2017 • by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Terrorism, understood as non-state political violence that inflicts physical harm on people and property outside of combat or occupied regions with the aim to frighten society and force a state to enact or change certain policies[1], is far from being a new phenomenon in Europe. In fact, it has been ...

Feature

A Pre-History of Post-truth

East and West

September 1, 2017 • by Marci Shore

The end of “The End of History” arrived together with the end of belief in reality. The Cold War world was a world of warring ideologies; in the twenty-first century, both American capitalism and post-Soviet oligarchy employ the same public relations specialists catering to gangsters with political ambitions. As Peter ...

Feature

Once Upon a Time in 1989

How the West is now learning the hard lessons of the East

August 30, 2017 • by Slavenka Drakulić

In the first of a series of articles from the landmark 50th edition of Transit (to be published in September), author Slavenka Drakulić casts a rueful glance over the expectations -- some fulfilled, many frustrated -- of the generations that have lived through the changes since 1989. I imagine a cosy ...

Feature

Turkey One Year After the Coup Attempt

Erdogan has set up an autocracy

August 23, 2017 • by Ahmet İnsel

The proclamation of a state of emergency in Turkey on 20 July 2016, four days after the abortive coup there, has paved the way for the general rule of arbitrariness. The government, by violating the limits imposed by the constitution on the jurisdiction of the state of emergency, has since ...

Education

The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere II

The Sphere of Publics and its Bifurcation

August 19, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

As our seminar on authoritarianism and public life progressed, we focused on the work of Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, and Joshua Meyrowitz to develop an understanding of mediated public life. Their sociology of media is a sociology of mediated interactions, rather than studies of the media, i.e. major newspapers, ...

Education

The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere I

Reviewing the work of Jurgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt with an assist from Nancy Fraser

August 18, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

It’s been two weeks since my return from Wroclaw. I am getting over the shock of teaching about the rise of the new authoritarianism, as the Polish parliament, The Sejm, seemed to be hammering the final nails into the coffin of Polish democracy. It turned out to be a little ...

The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere I

Feature

Illiberal Democracy and Conceptual Clarity

Report from a Debate

August 4, 2017 • by Ewa Atanassow

This piece is part of the discussion generated by Jeffrey C. Isaac’s piece, Illiberal Democracy. This May 8 in Berlin -- a date and place whose symbolism cannot be mistaken -- the Hertie School of Governance launched the 2017 issue of the Governance Report. This year’s issue is devoted to the topic of ...

Illiberal Democracy and Conceptual Clarity

Education

Media, the New Authoritarianism, and Its Alternatives Update

Teaching in Wroclaw, as liberal democracy is collapsing in Poland and beyond

August 1, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am exhausted. Conducting the seminar “Media, Publics and the New Authoritarianism” at this time, and in Poland, was intense, exciting, illuminating, and depressing. Coping with a combination of illumination and despair, I did not have the time or the constitution to properly digest what we were exploring together, and ...

Media, the New Authoritarianism, and Its Alternatives Update

Feature

The Rule of Law on the Peripheries of Europe

Poland’s Transformation 1988 – 2016

July 25, 2017 • by Ewa Letowska

With recent attacks on democracy across Europe, and across the world, The Transregional Center for Democratic Studies just completed its 26th annual Democracy & Diversity Institute in Wroclaw, Poland, “Democracy Under Siege: An Effort in Understanding.” The year’s extraordinary program of seminars, guest lectures, film screenings, and cultural tours culminated ...

The Rule of Law on the Peripheries of Europe

Feature

Taking “Illiberal Democracy” Seriously

Responding to Jeffrey C. Isaac’s Illiberal Democracy

July 21, 2017 • by Jan-Werner Mueller

This piece is part of the discussion generated by Jeffrey C. Isaac’s piece, Illiberal Democracy. Jeffrey Isaac wants us to take seriously “illiberal democracy” both as an idea and as a political reality at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is indeed important to understand the challenges posed by political leaders ...

Feature

Is There Illiberal Democracy?

A Problem with no Semantic Solution

July 12, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Editor's note: This is the introduction to an in depth essay on a major problem of our times, the international development of a form of authoritarianism that uses the rhetoric of democracy. The full essay can be found here. This then will be followed with a series of commentaries, opening a new ...