scholarly journals Intelektualiści zachodnioeuropejscy od wybuchu II wojny światowej do współczesności

2015 ◽  
pp. 145-164
Author(s):  
Maria Tomczak
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
World War 2 ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
New Formula

This study aims to show the forms of political involvement of Western European intellectuals. In doing so, the paper attempts to answer the question about the role they played in Western and Central Europe in the discussed period. The paper also demonstrates the cultural and political causes of their decline.streszczenieFor the intellectuals of Western and Central Europe, World War 2 was an extremely difficult period. The genocidal policies of the totalitarian states induced them to take a position, while at the same time depriving them of the ability to express their views publicly. This engendered a sense of helplessness; also, apart for a few exceptions, only emigrants could actually perform the function of intellectuals. Among those, an important role to play fell to two groups: German emigrants who distanced themselves from their nation, and Jewish emigrants, who addressed the subject of the Holocaust. After the war, the Iron Curtain also restricted the actions of intellectuals. It soon turned out that the tenor of spiritual life was set by left-wing authors, fascinated with the USSR. The fascination petered out after the disclosure of Stalin’s crimes in 1956. It was terminated definitively by the ruthless suppression of the Prague Spring. It was at that time that conservatism and right-wing intellectuals returned to Europe. Their aim was to reverse the trend and prevent Western Europe from drifting leftward. The change of the paradigm served to settle the scores with the leftist intellectuals. They were accused of subversive activities against the state and nation or treason. Also, in the intellectual circles there emerged a conviction that the previous formula had been exhausted. A new formula of activities of intellectuals was considered particularly in France, by authors of such eminence as R. Aron, M. Foucault, or P. Bourdieu. The deconstruction of the figure of the intellectual was completed by J.-F. Lyotard, who pronounced the death of intellectuals. Involvement of intellectuals remained a valid notion only in the countries of the Eastern bloc. In post-Cold War Europe, the decline of intellectuals became even more discernible. This was occasioned by a number of political and cultural factors. In this respect, particular role should be attributed to postmodernism which, by disproving the Enlightenment understanding of culture, undermined the role played by intellectuals.

The Trilateral Era

Worldview ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 21-23
Author(s):  
Jeremiah Novak
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
Henry Kissinger ◽  
George Bush ◽  
The Past ◽  
Corporate Executives ◽  
The U.S

For the past four years right-wing and left-wing organizations in the United States have been aware of a new foreign policy establishment known as the Trilateral Commission. This group, founded by David Rockefeller, is comprised largely of corporate executives from Western Europe, Japan, and the U.S. Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Cyrus Vance, as well as seventeen other members and former members of the Carter administration, belonged to this group before they took office. Key political figures in the governments of Japan and Western Europe also belong, as do John Anderson, George Bush, and Henry Kissinger.

Holocaust Cinema

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Gershenson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Holocaust

The study of Holocaust representation in cinema is located at the intersection of film studies and Holocaust studies. The scope of issues dealt with in the field is defined by two sets of tensions: first, tensions between history and narrative, and second between Eastern and Western understanding of the Holocaust. The tension between history and narrative emerges in response to the famous dictum by Adorno that there is no poetry after Auschwitz. The filmmakers—and the scholars studying their films—must engage with the thorny questions about the representability of atrocities on screens. Consequently, a body of scholarship, grounded in the theories of visual culture and psychanalytical theory focuses on the challenges of portraying tragic history authentically and in ways that honors the victims. The question is to what extent can historical facts be fictionalized, and which genres of fiction and documentary are appropriate. Specifically debated is the representation of the Holocaust in comedy, fantasy, and other popular genres. Scholarship also deals with questions of memory—how do the cinematic representations reflect and shape our understanding of history and transmission of memory. The second set of tensions emerges as a result of complex history both during World War II and the Cold War, which divided the world into the “West”—including the United States, Western Europe, and Israel, vis-a-vis the “East,” that is, the Soviet bloc. Under Soviet rule, the story of the Holocaust was largely subsumed into that of the “Great Patriotic War,” silencing the fact that its victims were Jews. Consequently, representation of the Holocaust in Soviet and other East European national cinemas was censored. Alternatively, the Western narrative of the Holocaust was mainly concerned with stories of Nazi concentration and death camps, obfuscating the history of the Holocaust in the Soviet territories. Only recently has the Western historical narrative of the Holocaust started turning to the East and film scholarship expanded its focus to include Soviet and Soviet-bloc national cinemas. This scholarship also asks questions of representation, but mainly in the context of censorship and suppression, as well as of comparative analysis of the visual culture of the Holocaust in national cinemas. Such scholarship uncovers hitherto unknown films and also analyzes the Eastern and Western narratives of the Holocaust in the post–Cold War era. Finally, some scholarship on Holocaust films is also concerned with periodization, that is, discussing films in the context of the historical period in which they were produced and circulated, whether in a particular national context or comparatively. This bibliography makes note of periods, from early Holocaust cinema to current films.

Flank attacks

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthijs Rooduijn ◽  
Tjitske Akkerman
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Category ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Good People ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right ◽  
Radical Left

How is populism distributed over the political spectrum? Are right-wing parties more populist than left-wing parties? Based on the analysis of 32 parties in five Western European countries between 1989 and 2008, we show that radical parties on both the left and the right are inclined to employ a populist discourse. This is a striking finding, because populism in Western Europe has typically been associated with the radical right; only some particular radical left parties have been labeled populist as well. This article suggests that the contemporary radical left in Western Europe is generally populist. Our explanation is that many contemporary radical left parties are not traditionally communist or socialist (anymore). They do not focus on the ‘proletariat’, but glorify a more general category: the ‘good people’. Moreover, they do not reject the system of liberal democracy as such, but only criticize the political and/or economic elites within that system.

How right-wing versus cosmopolitan political actors mobilize and translate images of immigrants in transnational contexts

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Doerr
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
People's Party ◽  
The Right ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis

This article examines visual posters and symbols constructed and circulated transnationally by various political actors to mobilize contentious politics on the issues of immigration and citizenship. Following right-wing mobilizations focusing on the Syrian refugee crisis, immigration has become one of the most contentious political issues in Western Europe. Right-wing populist political parties have used provocative visual posters depicting immigrants or refugees as ‘criminal foreigners’ or a ‘threat to the nation’, in some countries and contexts conflating the image of the immigrant with that of the Islamist terrorist. This article explores the transnational dynamics of visual mobilization by comparing the translation of right-wing nationalist with left-wing, cosmopolitan visual campaigns on the issue of immigration in Western Europe. The author first traces the crosscultural translation and sharing of an anti-immigrant poster created by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), a right-wing political party, inspiring different extremist as well as populist right-wing parties and grassroots activists in several other European countries. She then explores how left-libertarian social movements try to break racist stereotypes of immigrants. While right-wing political activists create a shared stereotypical image of immigrants as foes of an imaginary ethnonationalist citizenship, left-wing counter-images construct a more complex and nuanced imagery of citizenship and cultural diversity in Europe. The findings show the challenges of progressive activists’ attempts to translate cosmopolitan images of citizenship across different national and linguistic contexts in contrast to the right wing’s rapid and effective instrumentalizing and translating of denigrating images of minorities in different contexts.

scholarly journals Populism and Support for Protectionism: The Relevance of Opposition to Trade Openness for Leftist and Rightist Populist Voting in The Netherlands

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 560-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen van der Waal ◽  
Willem de Koster
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Trade Openness ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Political Distrust ◽  
The Relationship

Leftist and rightist populist parties in Western Europe both oppose trade openness. Is support for economic protectionism also relevant for their electorates? We assess this in the Netherlands, where both types of populist parties have seats in parliament. Analyses of representative survey data ( n = 1,296) demonstrate that support for protectionism drives voting for such parties, as do the well-established determinants of political distrust (both populist constituencies), economic egalitarianism (leftist populist constituency) and ethnocentrism (rightist populist constituency). Surprisingly, support for protectionism does not mediate the relationship between economic egalitarianism and voting for left-wing populists, or the link between political distrust and voting for either left-wing or right-wing populist parties. In contrast, support for protectionism partly mediates the association between ethnocentrism and voting for right-wing populists. We discuss the largely independent role of protectionism in populist voting in relation to the cultural cleavage in politics and electoral competition, and also provide suggestions for future research.

scholarly journals Ideological Inconsistencies on the Left and Right as a Product of Coherence of Preferences for Values. The Case of Poland

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Radkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
General Hypothesis ◽  
Openness To Change ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Ideological Dimension ◽  
Self Transcendence

Abstract The terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ cannot describe two extremes of a single ideological dimension. Instead, a bi-dimensional model including socio-cultural and socio-economic facets of leftism/rightism is postulated. Several studies conducted in the USA and Western Europe show a relative coherence of left-wing and right-wing orientation regarding both dimensions, whereas very diverse patterns can be found in the countries of Eastern Europe. In Poland cultural and economic leftism-rightism seem to be clearly negatively related. The general hypothesis in this paper claims that such ideological inconsistency is a product of coherence at the level of preferences for values, i.e. covariance within individualistic (Openness to change and Self-enhancement) as well as within collectivist values (Conservation and Self-transcendence). Based on a survey study (N = 750) conducted on a representative sample of Poles, it was shown that preferences for values made up two distinct dimensions: Openness to change vs Conservation, and Self-enhancement vs Self-transcendence. They are positively related but have fundamentally different relationships with political self-identification and ideology.

scholarly journals Choosing whom to betray: populist right-wing parties, welfare state reforms and the trade-off between office and votes

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Afonso
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Pension Reforms ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

This article analyses the impact of populist right-wing parties (PRWPs) on welfare state reforms in Western Europe in the light of the trade-off that they face between office and votes. On the one hand, PRWPs appeal to traditionally left-leaning blue-collar ‘insiders’ supportive of social insurance schemes. On the other hand, they have only been able to take part in government as junior coalition partners with liberal or conservative parties who are more likely to retrench these very same welfare programmes. In this context, the article argues that these parties have to choose between betraying their electorate (and losing votes), and betraying their coalition partners (and losing office). When they choose office, it enables welfare state retrenchment by allowing their coalition partners to curtail left-wing opposition, but entails high electoral costs for PRWPs. When they choose votes, it generates deadlock and potentially jeopardizes their participation in government. The paper draws on a comparative analysis of pension reforms during three periods of government participation of PRWPs: the Schüssel I and II cabinets in Austria (2000–06), the Rutte I cabinet in the Netherlands (2010–12) and three pension reforms in Switzerland between 1995 and 2010. The analysis draws on original primary material and interviews.

scholarly journals Yiddish

Linguistics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Beider
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
System Level ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Linguistic Basis

According to its main system-level characteristics, Yiddish belongs to the High German branch of West Germanic languages. During its development, it underwent an important influence of Hebrew. In modern times, we can distinguish three main varieties of Yiddish: (1) Western Yiddish in western German-speaking territories; (2) Yiddish spoken until the 20th century in Central Europe (Czech and East German lands), and (3) Eastern Yiddish in eastern Europe. From the point of view of Germanistics, it is appropriate to consider that the inception of Yiddish varieties corresponds to the Early New High German period (1350–1650). It was during that period that the Jewish vernacular idiom started to have system-level differences in comparison to the dialects spoken by German Christians, namely, in phonology and grammar. Before that period, differences surely existed in such domains, surface level for any language, as orthography and lexicon. The German dialects from southern Germany represent the linguistic basis for Western Yiddish. The medieval Bohemian dialect of German represents the linguistic basis for Yiddish spoken in Central Europe and eastern Europe. Due to permanent contacts with the Slavic Christian population, Eastern Yiddish underwent numerous changes in all of its systems due to the strong influence of Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. It eventually branched into three subdialects: Lithuanian Yiddish, Polish Yiddish, and Ukrainian Yiddish. In modern times, in numerous countries the decline of the use of Yiddish as a living language was related to the assimilation of local Jews to the culture of the Gentile majority. At the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century it was the case in various German-speaking provinces of Central Europe and western Europe where local Jews abandoned Yiddish in favor to German. Similar shifts to the dominant non-Jewish languages took place during the 20th century in various western European countries. In the USSR, during the 1920s and the 1930s the shift to Russian was already well advanced. For those who survived the Holocaust, the assimilation accelerated during the following decades. In Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, and Romania, Yiddish-speaking communities were decimated by the Holocaust. In North America, most immigrant families shifted to English within a generation or two. Yet, because of a permanent influx of masses of native speakers between the 1880s and the 1920s, Yiddish was actively used until the mid-20th century even in certain secular Jewish groups. However, during the second half of the 20th century its decline was accelerated outside of certain Haredi groups.

scholarly journals Right-Wing Populism and Religion in Europe and the USA

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 490
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Purpose ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
And Behavior

The aim of this paper is to examine comparatively the growth and political effectiveness of right-wing populism in Western Europe, Central Europe, and the USA since 9/11. The focus is on such politicians’ vilification of Islam as a faith and Muslims as a people. The paper examines the following research question: how and why do right-wing populists in the USA and Europe use an ideological form of “Christianity”, known variously as “Christianism” or “Christian civilizationism”, to vilify Muslims and Islam? The political purpose seems obvious: to influence public perceptions and to win votes by questioning the desirability of Muslims in both the USA and Europe, claiming that Muslims’ religious and cultural attributes make them unacceptable as neighbors. As Muslims are not capable, so the argument goes, of assimilating to European or American norms, values, and behavior, then they must be excluded or strongly controlled for the benefit of nativist communities. Right-wing populists in both the USA and Europe pursue this strategy because they see it as chiming well with public opinion at a time of great uncertainty, instability, and insecurity.

scholarly journals Is there a demand for autocracies in Europe? Comparing the attitudes of Hungarian and Italian university students toward liberal democratic values inspired by János Kornai

Public Choice ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 187 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 217-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miklós Rosta ◽  
László Tóth
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Survey Methodology ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Protected Values

AbstractIn the European Union right-wing and left-wing populist parties are increasingly becoming stronger. Meanwhile in Central and Eastern Europe autocracies are emerging and becoming stabilized. Italy and Hungary are two notable examples of these processes. Italy is the only country in Western Europe where a coalition of purely populist parties won an election, while Hungary has the most mature autocracy in the European Union. By using survey methodology, we examined the preferences of Hungarian and Italian students regarding the values of liberal democracy. We seek answers to the questions whether there are any significant differences between the proportion of Hungarian students and Italian students who identify themselves with the values of liberal democracy and which of these values of liberal democracy they consider to be protected values. Based on our results, we claim that students from both countries are more likely to support liberal democratic values than to support either right-wing or left-wing populist values, even if the distributions of the two groups differ significantly. We found that Italian students adhere more strongly to liberal democratic values, while Hungarians are more open to left-wing and right-wing populism. Our results confirm that in Hungary, because of the values that many people hold, conditions are conducive for establishing a sustainable autocracy, while in Italy, the demand for such a system is much weaker.

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