Máté Szalai: Three narratives about the Qatari elections
Máté Szalai considers the three key narratives that observers and analysts use when discussing the historic elections held in Qatar this October. The first narrative highlights the elections as a vital milestone in the slow process of democratization, the second noted the importance of identity politics and voting rights, and the final narrative opined that the elections were a PR stunt to bolster Qatar’s public image.
In conversation with Barbara Grabowska-Moroz: The escalation of Poland’s Rule of Law crisis
Barbara Grabowska-Moroz discusses the current state of the rule of law crisis in Poland, the arduous relationship between the EU and Polish courts, and how this impacts EU Member States.
Emily Greble: European History via the Experience of Muslims
Emily Greble in conversation with Ferenc Laczo discusses what foregrounding Muslims’ agency implies for the writing of European history; what were key legacies of the Ottoman Empire and how Muslims became a distinct legal minority; in what ways they related to the major political movements of the twentieth century; and how focusing on their experiences can help us reconceptualize questions of secularism and citizenship.
Linking sexual diversity to otherness is an old phenomenon
Bence Bari interviews Tamás Dombos, the representative of the Hungarian LGBTQI organization ‘Háttér Society’ concerning the recently adopted Hungarian anti-LGBT measures, their transnational and historical background with respect to the global dynamics of acceptance, and homophobia between the Western and Eastern hemisphere.
‘In the Name of the Family’: Conference Report on the Budapest Demographic Summit
The authors summarize and contextualize the content of the summit to argue that the conference not only provided an opportunity for its participants to address the ‘demographic crisis’ in Europe and the ‘family politics of conservative’ governments,’ but also amounted to an attempt to develop a transnational narrative for such self-declared conservatives that could unite political and ideological actors on various continents.
Unspoken Inequalities. The Problems of Men in Europe
In many developed countries, polarization of young women and men has been increasingly visible in polls and has been noted by public opinion.
What After the Pandemic?
Kasia Krzyżanowska reviews for us “Pandemonium” by Luuk van Middelaar, a book that summarizes the crisis he deems as most important for the EU in decades: the coronavirus pandemic.
Julie Smith: Brexit negotiations have been damaging for both sides
Michal Matlak interviewed Professor Julie Smith, Baroness of Newnham, who is a Liberal Democrat parliamentarian in the British House of Lords. They discuss referendums, the causes and outcomes of Brexit, the negotiation strategies of both the EU and UK, the likelihood of the UK returning to the EU in the future, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated post-Brexit evaluations.
Emily Levine on the Hard Compromises behind Academic Innovation
In conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Emily Levine (Stanford University) discusses key ideas in her new book “Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University”, a transatlantic monograph that draws on extensive historical research and applies sociological theory to study how the academic social contract was repeatedly renegotiated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Informal power – undermining democracy under the EU’s radar in Hungary and Poland
In this article, Edit Zgut discusses how the governments in Hungary and Poland have been able to undermine democracy using informal power, namely political clientism and media capture, while “flying beneath the radar” of EU’s mechanisms which are meant to prevent such deteriorations.