Legitimizing austerity in crisis-hit Greece

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-711
Author(s):  
E. Dimitris Kitis ◽  
Dimitris Serafis
Keyword(s):  
Social Democracy ◽  
Greek Population ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
European Level ◽  
Greek Crisis ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
The People ◽  
Radical Left ◽  
Critical Moments

Abstract The article examines two key-speeches given by Greek PMs, at crucial junctures of the Greek crisis, both aiming to legitimize austerity programs to the Greek population. The speeches by Papandreou (Socialists) and Tsipras (Radical Left) represent critical moments of the crisis as the two PMs prepared to annul their pre-election promises for a cessation of austerity. Within a CDS framework, we combine Systemic-Functional and Cognitive-Linguistic perspectives to demonstrate that both speeches, contrary to depoliticized/technocratic (neoliberal) discourse, converge on the construction of a discourse that privileges ‘the people/nation’ while, contrary to left-populist discourse, obscure any references to ‘the-establishment’. We, thus, offer evidence of how left-wing discourses (of both established socialists and radical left) publicly (pro-)claim the reconfiguration of social-democracy while, in fact, capitulating to market demands for neoliberal austerity policies. Findings corroborate the view that real social-democracy has been neutered at the European level.

Foreign Judges and Communal Authorities in the Legislative and Legal Space of Florence in the Second Half of the 14th Century

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9 (107)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Irina Krasnova
Keyword(s):  
Political Regimes ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Abuse Of Power ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Application Of Law ◽  
The People ◽  
Legal Space ◽  
Critical Moments ◽  
Crisis Situations

The article attempts to consider the actions of two communal systems of power — foreign officials: the Podestà, the Captain of the People and the Executor of the Institutions of Justice, as well as communal structures formed in 1293 — the Signoria as part of the Priory, headed by the Honfalonier of Justice and the colleges of 12 good husbands and 16 gonfaloniers of companies, in a difficult period of changing political regimes in the second half of the 14th century. The main problem of the research is the practice of the application of law and power in the context of a relatively wide communal democracy, multi-power and frequent turnover of the Signoria (every 2 months). Before each composition of the Signoria, there was a temptation at critical moments not to apply legal norms, especially in the sphere of punitive jurisdiction, and not to use powers of authority to punish and suppress their fellow citizens. In this regard, the members of the Signoria especially needed foreign officials, whose importance increase d in crisis situations, which gave rise to dictatorial inclinations and abuse of power by the Podestà and the Captains of the People

Representation of citizens by the EP

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Gerkrath
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
European Level ◽  
Member States ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Constitutional Principle ◽  
Union Democracy ◽  
The People ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Political Decisions

As it is obviously impossible for the modern ‘demos’ to assemble in order to take political decisions, democratic representation is an inevitable tool in large democracies. Representatives have to stand for and to act for the people as a whole. Accordingly, the principle of representative or parliamentary democracy is a fundamental constitutional principle shared by all the Member States of the Union. Democracy doubtlessly works on the national level; the Member States' decisional powers, however, are fading with the constant transfer of competences towards the European level. This leads to a system of European ‘multi-level governance’ with wide consequences for the linkage between the represented peoples of the Member States and their representatives on both national and European levels.

Reclaiming the People: Counter-Populist Algorithmic Activism on Israeli Facebook

2022 ◽  
pp. 152747642110594
Author(s):  
Yoav Halperin
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Online Ethnography ◽  
The People ◽  
New Form

This article examines a new form of resistance to right-wing populist discourse on social media which I define as counter-populist algorithmic activism. Practitioners of this type of activism exploit platforms’ automated ranking mechanisms and interface design to bolster the online visibility of counter-populist voices. By so doing, activists seek to stymie the digitally mediated spread of right-wing populist rhetoric and advance an alternative, non-exclusionary vision of “the people.” To explore this nascent form of resistance, this study draws on a year-long online ethnography of a Facebook group of Israeli activists called Strengthening the Left Online. Through an observation of the group’s activities during 2017, as well as interviews with its main administrator and other left-wing Facebook users, I elucidate the distinctive nature of the motivations, strategies, and goals that guide counter-populist algorithmic activists.

Democracy and Good Governance

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-96
Author(s):  
Henk Addink
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government

Democracy is about government and governance by the people in different forms. Democracy is direct or by representation. Sovereignty of the people, however, is not the same as democracy. The position of minorities related to majorities, in a democracy, is not always easy to regulate. This situation has made clear that democracy also has qualitative contents and it is even clearer when we speak about democracy in the sense of a liberal democracy or of a social democracy. Two key elements in and topics related to democracy are the participation of the people and the elections by the people and the transparency of the government. There are some restrictions in a representative democracy and, for that reason, participation will be necessary to maintain the connection between the government and the people. But to have an adequate functioning of this participation and of the elections, transparency on behalf of the government is a necessary condition for a democracy.

scholarly journals Migrants and 'Patria'. The imagined community of the radical left in Spain

Teknokultura ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep Lobera
Keyword(s):  
Radical Right ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
Constitutional Patriotism ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Radical Left

The emergence of inclusive populist parties disputes the social construction of the ‘people’ to the exclusive populism, recently generating new academic debates. Do the new radical left parties have a nationalist character? Are populism and nationalism two inseparable dimensions? Drawing on an original dataset in Spain, this article shows that Podemos’ supporters are significantly less nationalist, expressing more open attitudes towards cultural diversity and immigration, and lower levels of Spanishness than voters from other parties. Arguably, Podemos operates as an antagonistic political option to the traditional positions of the populist radical right (PRR), building an inclusive imagined community around a type of constitutional patriotism or republican populism. These findings contribute to the scholar debate on the relationship of nationalism and populism, bringing to discussion the core values of the supporters of a populist party as a complementary element to its categorization.

scholarly journals ‘Bridges Over Troubled Waters’? The Competitive Symbiosis of Social Democracy and Radical Left in Crisis-Ridden Southern Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-81
Author(s):  
Ioannis Balampanidis ◽  
Ioannis Vlastaris ◽  
George Xezonakis ◽  
Magdalini Karagkiozoglou
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Strategic Responses ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Strategic Orientations ◽  
Electoral Cycle ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Radical Left

AbstractDuring the economic crisis, the radical left, especially in countries of the European South, continued its course from marginality to mainstream while social democracy found itself trapped in its previous strategic orientations. This article examines the two political families in a relational and comparative perspective, focusing on the interaction of social democratic and radical left parties that evolved in a series of national cases (Greece, Portugal, Spain and France) and in particular within the political and electoral cycle of 2015–17. The ideological, programmatic and strategic responses of these parties to the critical juncture of the crisis, which mark a convergence or deviation in the paths of the two ‘enemy brothers', shed light on their political and ideological mutations, transformations and/or adaptations.

scholarly journals Is there another people? Populism, radical democracy and immanent critique

2020 ◽  
pp. 019145372091045
Author(s):  
Victor Kempf
Keyword(s):  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The People ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Immanent Critique ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Open Question

This article explores the possibility of a notion of left-wing populism that is conceptually opposed to the identitarian logic of embodiment that characterises right-populist interpellations of ‘the people’. In the first part, I will demonstrate, that in Laclau’s constructivist approach, any populist embodiment of the people actually has a partial, subaltern and performative origin. On this basis, it becomes possible to distinguish between a radical-democratic version of the people that is self-reflexively aware of this origin and a regressive and reified one that ideologically betrays and negates its own subaltern tradition of democratic struggle by proclaiming to embody a positive, pre-established substance of ‘rooted’, ‘well-born’ community. In the second part of the article, I will focus on this self-negation as a starting point for an immanent critique of right-wing populism. Such an immanent critique is promising, because it could overcome the shortcomings of decisionism and moralism that limit the contemporary critique of right-wing populism. However, it remains still an open question how to defend and define a negativist truth of political community and subjectivation that is necessary for developing such a left-Hegelian critique of regressive and reified notions of ‘the people’.

Scapegoat or Instigator of Japanese Aggression? Inoue Kiyoshi's Case against the Emperor

1978 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles D. Sheldon
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Emotional Reaction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
The People ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Recent Emergence ◽  
Emperor System ◽  
The Mass Media

Since the war, some changes are discernible in Japanese attitudes towards the Emperor and the Imperial institution. When asked, those expressing support for the maintenance of the institution still comprise a stable and vast majority of the people (84 percent in 1973), but there has clearly been an increase in indifference, especially among the young. The other change is the recent emergence, after a long period of relative dormancy, of an emotional reaction on the part of a small minority against both the institution and the Emperor for their involvement in the per-1945 establishment. in the pre-1945 establishment. Bitter criticisms and attacks have dominated the intellectual journals and have spilled over into the mass media. There are strong emotional currents on both sides of the issue. One emotion, becoming more vocal, is iconoclastic; the other, not much represented in the mass media, is protective. In the immediate postwar period, the Emperor and the Imperial institution were associated in the minds of many Japanese, especially among those of left-wing persuasion, with repression, war and defeat. The problem of the ‘Emperor system,’ as the Communists called it, not yet decided by a new Constitution, became a political issue for a short period when Communists released from prison in 1945 mounted an attack on the Emperor as well as on the ‘Emperor system.’ But between 1946 and 1971, it was not of great importance as a political issue.

scholarly journals Historiography as a political battlefield (1956–1989): Italian left-wing historians on early German Social Democracy

Modern Italy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-211
Author(s):  
Nicola D'Elia
Keyword(s):  
Social Democracy ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

The debate surrounding German Social Democracy during the era of the Second International represents an important chapter in the historiography of post-Second World War Italy. At the same time, it also marks some crucial moments in the political and intellectual life of Republican Italy. This article aims to show the close relationship between the investigation of the past and the ongoing political struggle that has characterised research on this issue. Study of the topic was practically monopolised by left-wing historians, who, in dealing with the history of German Social Democracy, aimed also to direct the political strategy of workers’ parties. Considering the studies appearing after the 1956 crisis and in the mid-1970s, such a goal seems evident. It was only during the 1980s that the research opened itself to different perspectives – no longer influenced by ideological controversies.

Struggling for Feelings: The Politics of Emotions in the Radical New Left in West Germany,c.1968–84

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 615-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOACHIM C. HÄBERLEN ◽  
JAKE P. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
New Left ◽  
German Society ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Emotional Politics ◽  
Negative Feelings ◽  
Radical Left

AbstractThe article discusses emotional politics in the radical left in West Germany from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. The first part analyses radical left-wing critiques of capitalism during the 1970s that focused on the emotions that capitalism allegedly produced. The article argues that activists described an ‘emotional regime’ of capitalism, but in doing so effectively instituted an emotional regime within their own milieu which made the expression of certain negative feelings, such as fear, imperative. The article then discusses emotional practices radical left-wingers developed in order to overcome the alleged ‘emotional void’ of capitalism. The article's second part then focuses on the urban revolts of 1980–81 (mostly in Berlin). This revolt marked a decisive shift, as the centrality of fear, frustration and boredom was increasingly overshadowed by feelings of joy and ecstatic possibility. The article concludes by proposing that the alternative left contributed to the formulation of new emotional styles and norms in West German society at large.

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