scholarly journals THE EVOLUTION OF THE LEFT RADICAL PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN WESTERN EUROPE AND RUSSIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 49-53
Author(s):  
A.V. Kuznetsova ◽  
◽  
S.V. Kuzmina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Round Table ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Left Party ◽  
Western European ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Europe Today ◽  
Radical Left

A round table on the evolution of the Western European radical left parties and movements was held online on November 19, 2020. The participants of the round table presented reports and discussed such key cases of the radical left parties as Podemos, the Unconquered France and SYRIZA. In addition, they discussed what impact the Latin American experience had on the radical left in Western Europe. In the early 21st century, radial left parties and movements in Western Europe experienced an upsurge, which was largely triggered by the 2008 financial crisis. The rise of the several radial left parties was also fueled by the mass protests that continued in Europe throughout 2010. Currently, the radical left party Podemos in Spain has lost some of its supporters and faced the need to either sacrifice its principled position or be replaced by other parties. The Unconquered France also lost a significant number of votes in the 2017 elections. Finally, the most successful of the European radical left parties - SYRIZA in Greece - also lost parliamentary elections in 2019 and was forced to become the main opposition party. The roundtable participants agreed that with the rise to power, left radicals are forced to significantly change their political discourse, deradicalize and adapt to the existing rules of the game. Radical left movements in Latin America have had an undeniable impact on the Western European left. The speakers also noted that the development of the radical left ideas in Russia differs significantly from those in Western Europe. Today, the Russian radical left has no significant influence on the political arena. This article summarizes the main aspects of the academic presentations and the discussions that accompanied them.

The Populism/Anti-Populism Divide in Western Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Moffitt
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Short Article ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Western European ◽  
Europe Today

While the rise of populism in Western Europe over the past three decades has received a great deal of attention in the academic and popular literature, less attention has been paid to the rise of its opposite— anti-populism. This short article examines the discursive and stylistic dimensions of the construction and maintenance of the populism/anti-populism divide in Western Europe, paying particular attention to how anti-populists seek to discredit populist leaders, parties and followers. It argues that this divide is increasingly antagonistic, with both sides of the divide putting forward extremely different conceptions of how democracy should operate in the Western European political landscape: one radical and popular, the other liberal. It closes by suggesting that what is subsumed and feared under the label of the “populist threat” to democracy in Western Europe today is less about populism than nationalism and nativism.

Agonistic Queer TV Studies for Western Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Vanlee
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gender Diversity ◽  
Direct Interaction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Television Industry ◽  
Television Production ◽  
Lgbt Community ◽  
Western European ◽  
And Gender

Queer TV studies have until now focused predominantly on U.S. TV culture, and research into representations of sexual and gender diversity in Western European, Asian, and Latin American programming has only recently found traction. Due to this U.S. focus, queer television in Western Europe has yet to be comprehensively documented in scholarly sources, and Western European queer television studies hardly constitute an emancipated practice. Given that U.S.-focused queer theories of television remain the primary frame of reference to study LGBT+ televisibility in Western Europe, but its domestic small screens comprise a decidedly different institutional context, it is at this time necessary to synthetically assess how the U.S. television industry has given way to specific logics in queer scholarship and whether these logics suit conditions found in domestic television cultures. Queer analyses of U.S. TV programming rightly recognize the presence and form of non-heterosexual and non-cisgender characters and stories as a function of commerce; that is to say, television production in the United States must primarily be profitable, and whether or how the LGBT+ community is represented by popular entertainment is determined by economic factors. The recognition hereof pits queer scholars against the television industry, and the antagonistic approach it invites dissuades them from articulating how TV could do better for LGBT+ people rather than only critiquing what TV currently does wrong. While it is crucial to be attentive toward the power relations reflected and naturalized by television representations, it is also important to recognize that the discretion of prescriptive, normative interventions by queer TV scholars relates to conditions of U.S. television production. The dominance of public service broadcasters (PSBs) and their historical role in spearheading LGBT+ televisibility highlights the distinctive conditions queer TV scholarship is situated in in Western Europe and troubles established modes of engaging the medium. Where the modest scale of national industries already facilitates more direct interaction between academics and TV professionals, PSBs are held to democratic responsibilities on diverse representation and have a history of involving scholars to address and substantiate their pluralistic mission. Consequently, Western European television cultures offer a space to conceive of an agonistic mode of queer TV scholarship, premised not only on contesting what is wrong but also on proposing what would be right. Hence, future engagements with domestic LGBT+ televisibility must look beyond established analytics and explore the value of articulating openly normative propositions about desirable ways of representing sexual and gender diversity.

The Holy Spirit as Transforming Power Within a Society: Pneumatological Spirituality and Its Political/Social Relevance for Western Europe

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-142
Author(s):  
Matthias Wenk
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Black ◽  
Western European

AbstractBoth British and American Black Pentecostals as well as Latin American ones have begun to to develop a social ethic based on a pneumatological perspective. Their liberating and empowering experience of the Spirit has provided them with new categories and options to institute social change. By contrast, Western European Pentecostals have been predominantly silent in this regard. This article argues that a pneumatological spirituality has socio-political relevance also for Western European Pentecostals. Both the experience of the Spirit, as reflected in Luke—Acts and 1 Cor. 12-14, as well as the history of Pentecostalism, underline this thesis. However, in order to recover this social/political dimension of their Spirit-experience, Western European Pentecostals need to recover the community and social dimension of the kingdom of God over against a Western individualistic, internalized and spiritualized definition thereof.

The (non) particularities of West European radical left party supporters: comparing left party families

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgos Charalambous ◽  
Iasonas Lamprianou
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Left Party ◽  
West European ◽  
Radical Left

So far little has been done to explore similarities and differences between radical left parties and other traditionally perceived party families of the left at the societal level. A noticeable gap thus remains in the study of the European radical left: whether and in what ways social divides form the basis of radical left party support. Using data from the fourth round of the European Social Survey (2008), for five West European countries, we investigate radical left party supporters’ socio-demographic and attitudinal characteristics, juxtaposing them with those of social democratic party supporters and green party supporters. Our approach departs from related studies by distinguishing three cognitional operations within the economic left-right axis, that are based on the distinction between ideals and their effects on reality; and by testing for intra-left divides revolving around trust. Based on insights from cleavage research, we devise a number of hypotheses, most of which test positively. Our findings suggest left party families across Western Europe do reflect certain lines of division in society, albeit with qualifications. While structural divides are not found to be significant, there appears to be correspondence between political and attitudinal divides on a three-dimensional space. These concern the cognitive divisions within the economic left-right axis, issues of political trust, and attitudes towards the environment. Our findings have conceptual and empirical implications both for the left and for investigations into cleavage politics.

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