The role of economic and cultural changes in the rise of far-right in Greece: A regional analysis

Uncertainty and unease surround both Europe’s current predicament and future prospects. Be it national governments devoid of European solidarity, the self-contained Brussels bureaucracy or fear of another economic recession, the status quo in Europe contains much to be concerned about. In particular, the rise of the far right casts a shadow over contemporary Europe from Poland and Hungary to France and Italy. The leitmotif of this article is social Europe, i.e. Europe with commitment to “good society”, conducive to human well-being. I seek to envision a reconstruction to the current maladies. Before taking up the main task of the article, I write about the two key developments that have lead to the decline of social Europe. I begin with the Maastricht Treaty which had a profound impact on the rules of economic governance in Europe, as well as contained a vision of competitive and individualistic social life. Thereafter, I probe into the divisive consequences that austerity has had in Europe in the 2010s. Lastly, I focus on a path forward and inquire into social thought that aims at a reconstruction of European politics and economy in order to arrive at a social Europe. I shall do this by engaging with the recent ‘Manifesto for the democratization of Europe’ (Boujou et al., 2019), an initiative led by prominent French intellectuals that seeks to save Europe from its current troubled state.

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Europe at the Crossroad: Decline or Reconstruction?

On January 31, 2020, the UK left the European Union. Since the 2016 referendum, there has been a significant body of literature designed to answer the question of why the country’s residents made such a decision. This article contributes to scientific research on the subject under consideration. The novelty of the presented research is that, unlike most of the available works, it does not focus on the problems of migration and the deterioration of the socio-economic conditions of the country’s indigenous population. The article proves that these factors alone do not explain such broad support for Brexit by all segments of the population. The social transformation of the entire Western society, which led to the destruction of the usual social ties and traditional foundations of self-identification, is considered as one of the key reasons for the development of separatist sentiments in the UK. A person ceases to feel part of something whole and unchangeable, which causes a sense of fear, uncertainty and helplessness in many people, regardless of social affiliation. This forces us to look for a source of stability in the country’s past, when it was an independent and great Empire, which is embodied in the myth of “Global Britain”. The populist slogan “Take Back Control” is based on the historically insurmountable institutional differences between the UK and Europe, the main one being the UK’s attitude to the case law of the European court of justice, whose broad interpretations were included in the country’s administrative practice, which clearly contradicted the residents’ idea of democracy. Finally, author analyzes how these deep assumptions were embodied in the populist rhetoric of the “Leave” company, whose supporters used the post-truth methodology, offering a wide range of populist tools of both intellectual and emotional nature for almost all groups of the population, very accurately selecting information for various communication channels. The results of this study can be useful for analyzing nationalist and separatist sentiments in Western countries and predicting future developments.

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Брекзит: сепаратизм, популизм и социальная трансформация британского общества

Right-wing populist (RWP) parties and attitudes are flourishing in many European countries. This is often linked to the emergence of a new cleavage that juxtaposes the victims and beneficiaries of globalisation. Using data from the 2008 European Values Study (EVS) this paper investigates how globalisation affects both (1) the overall level of RWP attitudes in 27 EU countries, and (2) the attitudinal gap between victims and beneficiaries of globalisation. The results show (1) a clear and consistent effect of social position on RWP attitudes in all countries, (2) effect of globalisation on both overall levels of RWP attitudes, as well as (3) on the attitudinal gap between victims and beneficiaries. However, the determinants of the overall level and of the gap differ, and this explains the observed regional differences in Europe regarding the distribution of RWP attitudes. 

The victims strike back: Globalisation and right-wing populist attitudes in the EU. Evidence from the 2008 European Values Study

Rights constitutionalism faces a global crisis of legitimacy, and recent years have seen a surge in scholarship on the crisis. The vast majority of analyses focus on broad structural factors and processes. This article takes a different approach: sociological and bottom up. I use qualitative discourse analysis to examine how social actors in Israel justified their antagonism toward rights constitutionalism in three cases where judicial intervention for human rights encountered exceptional public opposition and political backlash. The analysis reveals that social actors used discourses of belonging—both liberal and non-liberal—to challenge rights constitutionalism as a constraint on democratic politics, when they perceived rights protection as conflicting with or undervaluing boundaries of collective identity. Based on these findings, I introduce a new concept—the challenge of belonging—that expresses the normative tension between individual rights and collective belonging. By highlighting the ethical dimension of social opposition to rights constitutionalism, the sociological approach allows a nuanced understanding of such opposition. The challenge of belonging can account for mixed attitudes in the same polity and even in the same social group on rights-oriented judicial intervention, and it points to a common normative thread linking attacks on liberal constitutionalism in vastly different sociopolitical settings.

Rights Constitutionalism and the Challenge of Belonging: An Empirical Inquiry into the Israeli Case

Since the Brexit-vote and the election of a far-right businessman as President of the United States, the social sciences have been struggling to explain the societal conditions that nourish the inc...

Sibylle van der Walt

Papers

Populism and the yearning for closure: From economic to cultural fragility: