This space has been quasi-dormant for a bit, but for anyone checking in, I have a new post up at The Smoke-Filled Room about the recent rally in Barcelona and what it means for Europe’s crises of wealth and identity. … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Europe
The Internal Contradictions of E.U. Identity Construction
There’s been a flap this week about an ad produced by the European Commission touting the benefits of E.U. enlargement. Watch: The video draws on the martial arts film genre, and shows a woman wearing a Beatrix Kiddo-esque yellow jumpsuit … Continue reading
A Note on Meaningful Identity
James Joyner has a post up on Mario Monti’s fears of a political “backlash” arising from “mutual resentments” between northern and southern Europe. It points to some interesting meditations on the interaction of economics, politics and culture that are more … Continue reading
Turkey and the Political Costs of E.U. Failure
If the current Euro crisis ends up leaving the E.U. fractured, moribund and/or substantively dead – a much stronger possibility than would’ve stalked Mario Draghi’s nightmares only a year ago – the organization will nevertheless have racked up one considerable … Continue reading
Transnational Elites and the Cession of Popular Sovereignty
A couple of weeks ago, for a class I’m currently taking, I thumbed through a battered copy of Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation. Published in 1944, the book sought to make sense of the creation and subsequent unraveling of 19th … Continue reading
What Would a Euro Collapse Look Like?
Reading Roger Cohen yesterday and Phil Levy and Andrew Sullivan today got me puzzling again over a predictive question that’s had me thinking for months: what precisely would happen to the E.U. politically should the Euro collapse? In other words, … Continue reading
Quick Hit: Slovakia says nay to Eurozone bailout expansion
Via the BBC, Slovakia’s parliament has voted against expanding the European Financial Stability Fund, throwing yet another wrench in the works of those trying to save the Eurozone from its current near-terminal condition. Evidently the measure was tied to a … Continue reading
Sharia, the Veil, and that (Non-Existent) Existential Threat
Reflecting on the hype about the allegedly existential threat that Shari’a law poses to American democracy, law professor Anver Emon makes a compelling distinction between how America has confronted its fear of Islamism, and how Europe has. The European response … Continue reading
What’s There to be “Sceptical” About?
Marat Terterov has a post up at New Europe called “Five reasons to be sceptical about Arab Spring.” Terterov outlines a number of major obstacles faced by many of the protest movements in the Middle East, including the enduring power of … Continue reading
A Few Thoughts on NATO
Sarwar Kashmeri has a worthwhile post hinting at anecdotal evidence of a generational divide within Western militaries about the continuing importance of NATO. It actually dovetails quite nicely with this post from Steve Walt a while back about how his … Continue reading