Peripheralization, Political Discontent, and Social and Solidarity Economy—Case Studies From Rural Hungary and Germany

The reintegration of Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies into globalized capitalism resulted in increasing regional polarization and the emergence of internal peripheries. The crisis of the globalized capitalist economy in 2008 resulted in the further peripheralization of rural areas, and the related crisis of representative democracies triggered rural resentment against the existing order. Inhabitants of peripheralized areas have a feeling of abandonment and political discontent. The rise of right-wing populism may be understood as a revolt of people living in precarious conditions in peripheralized areas both in Hungary and Germany. Left-wing populism, which builds on equality and social justice and is based on radical democracy, has not been able so far to reach the precaritized inhabitants of peripheralized rural areas. Solidarity economy, which is a contemporary social movement, refers to a comprehensive program aimed at transforming the entire economy, and may have the potential to address the political discontent of people living in peripheralized rural areas. In spite of the rising support for right-wing populism, social and solidarity economy (SSE) initiatives are being carried out in rural peripheries. These initiatives are based on the principles of participatory and economic democracy. Spaces provided by SSE initiatives can become forums for deliberation and co-management to develop economic democracy and become seeds of a solidarity economy movement in CEE. Therefore, based on a critical realist ethnographic approach, this paper aims to answer the question of how SSE initiatives may address the everyday material challenges and political discontent of people living in peripheralized villages by studying two SSE initiatives being carried out in two contrasting cases of peripheralization. Studying SSE initiatives in relation to 1) the locality they are embedded in, 2) “subaltern” groups within the locality, and 3) participatory, economic and 4) representative democracy helps to better understand in what ways SSE initiatives can mobilize political discontent to strengthen the solidarity economy movement in CEE.

Urban Commoning Under Adverse Conditions: Lessons From a Failed Transdisciplinary Project

While the commons and commoning are generally associated with community-based ecosystems at the localised scale of the neighbourhood, ambitious reinterpretations explore possibilities for scaling up commoning as a collaborative and sustainable form of urban governance engaging multiple stakeholders through the quintuple helix. Inspired by the City as Commons approach first imagined and formulated in Bologna, Italy, this paper presents original findings from a transdisciplinary action research project for studying and cultivating commoning-as-governance in a politically disaffected and economically marginalised inner-city neighbourhood in Liverpool, England. It examines the social relations (re)constituting an urban ecosystem for commoning and asks how such initiatives for designing collaborative programmes for transforming urban environments through public-common partnerships might work in contexts in which the material and affective resources for commoning have been exhausted by post-democratic privatisation and neoliberal austerity. Drawing on theories of radical democracy and post-politics, the City as Commons approach is critically evaluated and argued to be insufficient to the challenging task of engendering commoning in the disintegrating urban neighbourhoods that would arguably benefit most from such activities. The paper tells the story of how this transdisciplinary project ultimately failed in its aims and, through engagement with recent interventions on the politics of failure in the neoliberal university, reflects on the implications for future action research on commoning.

Radikale Demokratiebildung

Radical Democracy Education In the article, the question of the form of democratic education is central. Especially the Anthropocene gives rise to future tasks that must be theorized on the basis of a more radical understanding of democratic coexistence and that require a new form of democratic education. Fundamental to this is a change in the basic epistemological assumptions of democratic education. In the process, interfaces with artistic practices emerge. Ideas of methodical implementations arise in the context of aesthetic practices.

Democracy in the face of disagreement: Environmentalist opposition to Escarpment Mine on the Denniston Plateau

<p>Despite New Zealand’s Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) being lauded as offering democratic decision-making processes, those in opposition to consent applications often feel their input has minimal influence on the decisions made. This research explores how democracy is actualised or constrained through environmentalist opposition to decisions made about coal-mining on conservation land, including both informal and formal participation. Escarpment Mine is a proposal for an open cast coal mine on the Denniston Plateau on the West Coast of New Zealand. The mine was granted resource consents in 2011 by the two local councils. Environmental activists engaged with these decisions through the formal council led submission process, a requirement under the RMA, and informally through activism, protest and campaigning. Their opposition was founded on concerns about the mine’s effects on conservation and climate change. Drawing on theories of deliberative democracy and radical democracy, I create a framework for democracy that includes agonism and antagonism, situated within the overarching democratic principles of equality, justice and the rule of the people. Through interviewing environmentalists opposed to Escarpment Mine and the council officials involved, my research discusses the way environmentalists were constrained from participating meaningfully in the formal process due to perceived bias and the privileging of neoliberal discourses. I suggest that this case reflects a lack of agonism in most areas, and a delegitimising of antagonistic activism despite such activism working towards equality and justice. Thus, the case does not fulfil the democratic ideals of working with disagreement.</p>

Democracy in the face of disagreement: Environmentalist opposition to Escarpment Mine on the Denniston Plateau

<p>Despite New Zealand’s Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) being lauded as offering democratic decision-making processes, those in opposition to consent applications often feel their input has minimal influence on the decisions made. This research explores how democracy is actualised or constrained through environmentalist opposition to decisions made about coal-mining on conservation land, including both informal and formal participation. Escarpment Mine is a proposal for an open cast coal mine on the Denniston Plateau on the West Coast of New Zealand. The mine was granted resource consents in 2011 by the two local councils. Environmental activists engaged with these decisions through the formal council led submission process, a requirement under the RMA, and informally through activism, protest and campaigning. Their opposition was founded on concerns about the mine’s effects on conservation and climate change. Drawing on theories of deliberative democracy and radical democracy, I create a framework for democracy that includes agonism and antagonism, situated within the overarching democratic principles of equality, justice and the rule of the people. Through interviewing environmentalists opposed to Escarpment Mine and the council officials involved, my research discusses the way environmentalists were constrained from participating meaningfully in the formal process due to perceived bias and the privileging of neoliberal discourses. I suggest that this case reflects a lack of agonism in most areas, and a delegitimising of antagonistic activism despite such activism working towards equality and justice. Thus, the case does not fulfil the democratic ideals of working with disagreement.</p>

CATALYSTS OF BARBARIZATION AND DEBARBARIZATION IN CLASSICAL ATHENS

В качестве факторов, способствовавших нарастанию варваризации в Афинах второй полвины V в. до н.э., в статье указываются создание Афинской морской державы, движение софистов, конфликт поколений, Пелопоннесская война, наступление «эры демагогов». Обратное же движение в сторону деварваризации (с самого конца Vв. до н.э.) было связано в первую очередь с возрождением уважения к законности, с укреплением стабильности и порядка. Новая афинская демократия IV в. до н.э., которую одни специалисты считают «усовершенствованным» вариантом по сравнению с демократией предшествующего столетия, а другие, напротив, ее упадком, кризисом, была в основном свободна как от охлократических, так и от олигархических тенденций; она может с полным основанием быть определена как умеренная демократия, в отличие от радикальной демократии второй половины V в. до н.э. Конфликтов не то чтобы не было, но их старались разрешать мирным путем, по возможности достигая компромисса и избегая насилия. The article cites as factors, which promoted the growth of barbarization in Athens in the last half of the 5thcentury B.C., the following ones: the emergence of the Athenian Empire, the sophistic movement, the conflict of generations, the Peloponnesian War, and the coming of the “era of demagogues”. As to the reverse motion towards debarbarization (from the very end of the 5th century B.C.), it was connected, in the first instance, with revival of the lawfulness’ authority and with strengthening order and stability. The new Athenian democracy of the 4thcentury B.C. (which is considered by some scholars an “improved” version as compared with democracy of the previous century, but by other scholars, on the contrary, its decline and crisis) was in general free from both ochlocratic and oligarchic tendencies; it may be with good reason defined as a moderate democracy, as distinct from the radical democracy of the last half of the 5thcentury B.C. It is not to say that there were no conflicts, but people sought to solve them by peaceful way, as far as possible, to reach compromises and to avoid violence.

Radioactive waste management ethics and public policy: a precautionary approach

The focus of the project is on how to regulate risky technologies, both old (such as nuclear waste management) and new (such as geoengineering). Thus, the project is aimed at contributing to a better understanding of the ethical, political, and socio-economic aspects of radioactive waste management-related risks. The goal of the project is to contribute to the current discussions on the case of the expansion of the Hungarian Nuclear Power Plant. The Paks II project allows us to present how to set up procedures where some radioactive waste-related risks will not derail decision-makers and how they can be held accountable by the public. The case of Paks II is also compelling; as of today there are only 19 countries in the world that are in the process of new reactor building (World Nuclear Association, 2021). The project is aimed at providing and defending a precautionary approach to radioactive waste management because it involves high levels of uncertainty and the possibility of causing irreversible harm on a global scale. When investigating procedural principles of radioactive waste management policies by three types of precautionary approaches, the project will look at risks that stem from the displacement of politics in public consultations in relation to large infrastructural projects. The practices of the emerging era of public engagement tap into the current debates on democratic politics in political theory with the emergence of deliberative democracy (Bohman and Rehg, 1997; Dryzek, 2000; Gutmann and Thompson, 2009), and radical democracy (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001; Mouffe, 1999, 2000). Specific attention will be paid to the fragmentation of public along with technical and non-technical, local and national, site-specific and general issues, and the role of different political platforms (public exhibition events, consultation documents, and public engagement sessions) in the way in which the political is displaced from the arena of public inquiries to legal challenges and debates about boundaries and geographies.

Universal versus Decentralized Politics

This chapter compares and contrasts a negative conception of universality with key critics of universalism—those who advocate for a decentralized politics. It outlines two strains of the latter. The first is informed by the linguistic/cultural turn, including postmodernism and radical democracy (as represented by Foucault and Lyotard, and Laclau and Mouffe, respectively). The second strain operates under the ontological/affective turn, including New Materialism (Latour, Bennett), queer theory (Edelman, Ahmed), decoloniality (Mignolo), and Deleuzism (Hardt and Negri). The chapter deploys workers’ struggles as a case study for examining their place in a universal politics.

Is another democracy possible in schools? Challenges to create a truly democratic school

In most schools everywhere, democracy and participation continue to be carried out through the usual channels based on representative democracy and the vote of elected representatives. However, this reality is not monolithic, and we do find centers committed to practise a full and more profound democracy. Based on a case study, the article analyzes the theoretical and practical approach of Germinal School. Despite some difficulties, this school has successfully implemented a project of radical democracy, both through micropolitics and daily pedagogical action. This article also examines why it is so difficult to democratize school and how to create a truly democratic institution. Finally, we address the possibility of extending the democratic model presented here to other schools.