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Next Left
British and Irish politics have been intertwined for centuries, a fact that Irish political observers have never been able to forget. Such is the case with the saga of Brexit. However, if Irish must now accept Brexit as inevitable, there are a few fundamental protections that cannot be undone. It...
Labour was facing a deeply unpopular Conservative opponent. And still, the Conservatives won their largest parliamentary majority since 1987, the heyday of Margaret Thatcher. Some of the reasons for defeat are particular to the unclear stance on Brexit, the Jeremy Corbyn’s reputation. However they are not the most fundamental reasons for...
The Romanian social democrats, the party of the many, like it was once called, with more than half a million members, simply couldn’t convince its traditional voters to participate and get involved at the elections. In the same time, they couldn’t manage to build alliances with the other parties. Isolated,...
Former Prime Minister and President of the Social Democrat Party (PSD), Viorica Dăncilă, scored below any expectations. Beyond the worst electoral outcome for the party since 1989 (34%), Social democrats are defeated in a country which is in a great need of social justice and adequate social policies. In Romania, according...
Thinking he could replay the scenario of his 2017 presidential campaign, during which he had presented himself as a bulwark against the far right, the French President Emmanuel Macron made the alternative between progressives and nationalists the central issue in the European elections. But is his authoritarian neoliberalism so far...
The German sociologist Wolfgang Engler examines the question what happened to (Eastern) Germany in the past three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall from the inside. In his last book – together with the journalist and writer Jana Hensel – “Wer wir sind. Die Erfahrung, ostdeutsch zu sein”...
The French president Emmanuel Macron claims to embody today’s progressivism, as opposed to ‘nationalism’. The profound difficulty for his concept though is that he lacks both a rigorous analysis of capitalism, and a clear understanding of the enduring importance of nation-states. A new concept of progressivism in Europe has to...
Switzerland gets much greener, more feminist and is moving significantly to the left. These are the main results of the national elections, which took place on 20th October. The election reflects a huge mobilisation for gender equality (500.000 women went on strike on 14 June 2019) and for climate protection...
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ruling Liberals were reduced to a minority government and just 33% of the popular vote on October 21, down from 39.5% in 2015. With 170 seats needed to form a majority, they will hold 157 seats, down from 184 in 2015. The Liberals lost seats...
From today’s perspective, the 1990s may seem like ancient history. The images of the Polish Solidarność trade union rising and the fall of the Berlin Wall remind us of the transition, during which the populations of Central and Eastern Europe chose a democratic path and reunification with the West. Soon...