Download or read book Contesting Austerity and Free Trade in the EU written by Julia Rone and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explores the diffusion of protest against austerity and free trade agreements in the wave of contention that shook the EU following the 2008 economic crisis. It discusses how protests against austerity and free trade agreements manifested a wider discontent with the constitutionalization of economic policy and the way economic decisions have been insulated from democratic debate. It also explores the differentiated politicization of these issues and the diffusion of protests across Western as well as Eastern Europe, which has often been neglected in studies of the post-crisis turmoil. Julia Rone emphasizes that far from being an automatic spontaneous process, protest diffusion is highly complex, and its success or failure can be impacted by the strategic agency and media practices of key political players involved such as bottom-up activists, as well as trade unions, political parties, NGOs, intellectuals and mainstream media. This is an important resource for media and communications students and scholars with an interest in activism, political economy, social movement studies and protest movements.

Download or read book The Left Case Against the EU written by Costas Lapavitsas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-12-05 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many on the Left see the European Union as a fundamentally benign project with the potential to underpin ever greater cooperation and progress. If it has drifted rightward, the answer is to fight for reform from within. In this iconoclastic polemic, economist Costas Lapavitsas demolishes this view. He contends that the EU’s response to the Eurozone crisis represents the ultimate transformation of the union into a neoliberal citadel that institutionally embeds austerity, privatization, and wage cuts. Concurrently, the rise of German hegemony has divided the EU into an unstable core and dependent peripheries. These related developments make the EU impervious to meaningful reform. The solution is therefore a direct challenge to the EU project that stresses popular and national sovereignty as preconditions for true internationalist socialism. Lapavitsas’s powerful manifesto for a left opposition to the EU upends the wishful thinking that often characterizes the debate and will be a challenging read for all on the Left interested in the future of Europe.

Download or read book Movement Parties Against Austerity written by Donatella della Porta and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-04-21 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ascendance of austerity policies and the protests they have generated have had a deep impact on the shape of contemporary politics. The stunning electoral successes of SYRIZA in Greece, Podemos in Spain and the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in Italy, alongside the quest for a more radical left in countries such as the UK and the US, bear witness to a new wave of parties that draws inspiration and strength from social movements. The rise of movement parties challenges simplistic expectations of a growing separation between institutional and contentious politics and the decline of the left. Their return demands attention as a way of understanding both contemporary socio-political dynamics and the fundamentals of political parties and representation. Bridging social movement and party politics studies, within a broad concern with democratic theories, this volume presents new empirical evidence and conceptual insight into these topical socio-political phenomena, within a cross-national comparative perspective.

Download or read book Imagining Europe written by Paul Blokker and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an extensive analysis and discussion of the transnational mobilization of citizens and youth, alongside the production of creative, imaginative, and constructive solutions to the European crisis. The volume provides a variety of interdisciplinary analyses, as well as a series of perspectives on populism that have not been addressed extensively, including an examination of left-wing populism, the constituent power dimension of populism, and transnational manifestations of populism, contributing to debates on political science, political sociology, social movements studies, and political and constitutional theory.

Download or read book Beyond Defeat and Austerity written by David Bailey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the critical discussion of the European political economy and the Eurozone crisis has focused upon a sense that solidaristic achievements built up during the post-war period are being continuously unravelled. Whilst there are many reasons to lament the trajectory of change within Europe’s political economy, there are also important developments, trends and processes which have acted to obstruct, hinder and present alternatives to this perceived trajectory of declining social solidarity. These alternatives have tended to be obscured from view, in part as a result of the conceptual approaches adopted within the literature. Drawing from examples across the EU, this book presents an alternative narrative and explanation for the development of Europe’s political economy and crisis, emphasising the agency of what are typically considered subordinate (and passive) actors. By highlighting patterns of resistance, disobedience and disruption it makes a significant contribution to a literature that has otherwise been more concerned to understand patterns of heightened domination, exploitation, inequality and neoliberal consolidation. It will be of interest to students and scholars alike.

Download or read book Developments in European Politics 3 written by Veronica Anghel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-09-08 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developments in European Politics considers what Europe is, where it came from, and what European citizens can make of it. It brings together specially commissioned chapters by leading authorities to give an up-to-date and systematic analysis of European political developments – in institutions, processes and policy – at national, regional and international levels. It provides wide-ranging and clear analysis of the factors influencing European politics, from populism and extremism in national politics to the broader forces of globalization, immigration, climate change and international terrorism. Bringing together a brand new contributor team, this new edition offers: - More coverage of Europe's role in the world - Increased focus on the attitudes of European citizens as the motor of European politics - End of chapter reading suggestions and key questions, enabling readers to engage with the important issues at stake - An overarching framework that hones in on four contemporary themes: the rise of authoritarian politics, the mismanagement of globalization, the perception of collective insecurity, and the disintegration of Europe. This is an ideal text for students undertaking courses on European Politics, as well as anyone interested in understanding the political challenges facing Europe today.

Download or read book Remembering the Neoliberal Turn written by Veronika Pehe and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-08-25 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses how societies, groups and individuals remember and make sense of global neoliberal change in Eastern Europe. Such an investigation is all the more timely as the 1990s are increasingly looked to for answers explaining the populist and nationalist turn across the globe. The volume shows how the key processes that impacted many lives across the social spectrum in Eastern Europe, such as deindustrialization, privatization, restitution and abrupt social reorganization, are collectively remembered across society today and how memory narratives of the 1990s contribute to current identities and political climate. This volume establishes the memory of economic transformation as a research focus in its own right. It investigates different levels of memory, from the national through the local to the cultural, analysing key myths of the transformation, giving special recognition to the social space and vernacular memories of the transformation period and reflecting on how the changes of the 1990s are mediated in cultural representations. Given the book’s interdisciplinary scope that covers several fields, it will prove to be of interest to those working in memory studies, contemporary history, sociology, East European area studies and literary and film studies. It will also serve as a significant point of reference for those researching the interdisciplinary and rapidly expanding field of transformation studies and thus is an invaluable source across different fields.

Download or read book Politicising Commodification written by Roland Erne and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-06 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the new economic governance (NEG) regime that the EU adopted after 2008. Its novel research design captures the supranational formulation of NEG prescriptions and their uneven deployment across countries (Germany, Italy, Ireland, Romania), policy areas (employment relations, public services), and sectors (transport, water, healthcare). NEG led to a much more vertical mode of EU integration, and its commodification agenda unleashed a plethora of union and social-movement protests, including transnationally. The book presents findings that are crucial for the prospects of European democracy, as labour politics is essential in framing the struggles about the direction of NEG along a commodification–decommodification axis rather than a national–EU axis. To shed light on corresponding processes at EU level, it upscales insights on the historical role that labour movements have played in the development of democracy and welfare states. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Download or read book Media Activism Artivism and the Fight Against Marginalisation in the Global South written by Andrea Medrado and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-26 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses a South-to-South connection between media activists and artivists – artists who are activists – in the Global South. The authors, Andrea Medrado and Isabella Rega, emphasise the urgent need to engage in South-to-South dialogues in order to create more sustainable connections between Global South communities and as an essential step towards identifying and facing global problems, such as state repression, social inequality and climate crises. Medrado and Rega analyse the characteristics of this connection, identify its unique contributions to the study of media and social change and discuss its long-term sustainability. They do so by focusing on instances when media narratives in countries of different Global South(s) intertwine and transform each other; specifically, the exchanges between Latin America (Brazil) and Africa (Kenya). They explore how media activism and artivism can be used as tools for global movement building and to challenge colonial legacies. They also discuss how to connect people with varied skill sets in different Global South contexts, promoting South-to-South solidarity, in a cross-continental challenge to marginalisation. Crucial reading for students and scholars of media activism, social movements, global media and communication, development studies and international studies, as well as activists and social movement organisations.

Download or read book Geopolitics and Democracy written by Peter Trubowitz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A large and widening gap has opened between Western democracies' international ambitions and their domestic political capacity to support them. On issues ranging from immigration and international trade to national security, new political parties on the left and the right are rejecting the core foreign policy principles that Western governments have championed for over half a century. Much of the debate over the weakening of the Western liberal order has focused on recent changes: Donald Trump's presidency, Britain's vote to leave the European Union, and the surge of nationalist sentiment in France, Germany, and other Western democracies. In Geopolitics and Democracy, Peter Trubowitz and Brian Burgoon provide a powerful new explanation for the rise of anti-globalism in the West. Combining a novel theoretical framework and empirical strategy, Trubowitz and Burgoon show that support for globalism has been receding for 30 years in Western parties and legislatures. They trace the anti-globalist backlash to foreign policy decisions that mainstream parties and party elites made after the end of the Cold War. These decisions sought to globalize markets and pool sovereignty at the supranational level while applying neoliberal reforms to social protections and guarantees at home--a combination of policies that succeeded in expanding the Western liberal order, but at the cost of mounting public discontent and political fragmentation. At a time when problems of great power rivalry, spheres of influence, and reactionary nationalism have returned, Geopolitics and Democracy reveals how domestic support for international engagement during the long East-West geopolitical contest was contingent upon social protections within Western democracies. In the absence of a renewed commitment to those social purposes, Western democracies will struggle to find a collective grand strategy that their domestic publics will support.

Download or read book Second Thoughts on Capitalism and the State written by Leslie Sklair and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2022-05-02 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays highlights the need for sociological and political analysis of actual alternatives to capitalism and the existing system of so-called nation states. It challenges the conventional idea that capitalism can be successfully reformed to meet the needs of most people in the world, confronting it with the existential threats posed by the perfect storm of climate change and the Anthropocene, hyper-urbanization, and the Coronavirus pandemic. Written over a period of 50 years, it charts the ways in which capitalism and socialism have evolved as global systems, their successes and failures, to the point that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”. It offers ways forward, community by community.

Download or read book Understanding Global Social Policy written by Yeates, Nicola and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2022-02-28 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third edition of this leading textbook offers a contemporary, lively and accessible overview of international actors and social policy formation, identifying key issues, debates and priorities for action in social policy across the Global South and North.

Download or read book Communication Activism Research for Social Justice written by Kevin M. Carragee and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-28 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Communication scholars have taken seriously the call for engaged scholarship, and this book examines the principles, practices, and outcomes of communication activism research for social justice. Communication activism research differs from other engaged communication scholarship through researchers promoting social justice, intervening collaboratively, and creating or assisting established collective actors that represent marginalized communities. Collective actors examined in this book include Black Lives Matter, the feminist movement, and LGBTQ+ groups. This book provides practical guidance on how to perform communication activism research, offering recommendations for managing its challenges and discussing qualitative and quantitative methods for evaluating research interventions focusing on significant contemporary issues. This book will appeal to scholars who study and teach communication and social justice activism as well as scholars from disciplines such as sociology, and it is ideal as a text in courses on communication and activism, engaged communication scholarship, communication and social movements, and communication research methods.

Download or read book Austerity written by Suzanne J. Konzelmann and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-10-14 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Austerity has been at the center of political controversy following the 2008 financial crisis, invoked by politicians and academics across the political spectrum as the answer to, or cause of, our post-crash economic malaise. However, despite being the cause of debate for more than three centuries, austerity remains a poorly understood concept. In this book, Suzanne J. Konzelmann aims to demystify austerity as an economic policy, a political idea, and a social phenomenon. Beginning with an analysis of political and socioeconomic history from the seventeenth century, she explains the economics of austerity in the context of the overall dynamics of state spending, tax, and debt. Using comparative case studies from around the world, ranging from the 1930s to post-2008, she then evaluates the outcomes of austerity in light of its stated objectives and analyzes the conditions under which it doesn’t – and occasionally does – work. This accessible introduction to austerity will be essential reading for students and scholars of political economy, economics, and politics, as well as all readers interested in current affairs.

Download or read book Economic and Social Rights after the Global Financial Crisis written by Aoife Nolan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-09 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global financial and economic crises have had a devastating impact on economic and social rights. These rights were ignored by economic policy makers prior to the crises and continue to be disregarded in the current 'age of austerity'. This is the first book to focus squarely on the interrelationship between contemporary and historic economic and financial crises, the responses thereto, and the resulting impact upon economic and social rights. Chapters examine the obligations imposed by such rights in terms of domestic and supranational crisis-related policy and law, and argue for a response to the crises that integrates these human rights considerations. The expert international contributors, both academics and practitioners, are drawn from a range of disciplines including law, economics, development and political science. The collection is thus uniquely placed to address debates and developments from a range of disciplinary, geographical and professional perspectives.

Download or read book Austerity written by Lorenzo Bini Smaghi and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crisis in the eurozone has had a dramatic impact on the economic and social fabric of European countries. However, the economic dimension is only the symptom of a broader problem. The crisis is primarily political in nature. Lorenzo Bini Smaghi argues in this book that the crisis reflects the inability of western democracies to solve problems that have been building for over two decades. He finds that democratically elected officials are loathe to take unpopular decisions that could jeopardize their reelection. Emergency thus becomes the engine of political action, and the justification for corrective measures vis-a-vis the voters. As a consequence, the cure in the form of austerity, administered belatedly under pressure from the markets, becomes even more painful and unpopular, giving rise to populist movements and endangering democracy itself."

Download or read book Contesting Austerity written by Anuscheh Farahat and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the different forms of austerity, contestation and resistance, in order to understand how they relate to one another and the impact they have on the democratic quality of public debates, the trust in public institutions and the legitimacy of law. Contestation of austerity includes not only traditional activism strategies such as human rights litigation and direct democracy instruments, but also new forms of collective action and collaborative resistance. Most importantly, many of the new anti-austerity initiatives also aim to renovate existing modes of democratic decision-making on the European, national, regional and local levels. The book focuses on different types of contesting austerity measures and the interaction between institutional and civil society actors. It will enhance understanding of how the various actors frame not only their goal but also the underlying social conflict to contest austerity and through which means they try to achieve political and legal changes. With 16 chapters written by contributors from Spain, Germany, Greece, Portugal and the UK, the book approaches 3 crucial areas of austerity policies: cuts in payment and pensions, labour law reform, and old and new poverty. In each field, the contributors analyse the processes of decision-making and contestation from 3 perspectives: institutions, democratic theory and societal responses.