Friday, July 10, 2015
J205 (13 rue de l'Université)
Politics in Europe has, historically, been remarkable for the resilience of its radical character. Long after the revolutions that gave birth to liberal democracies, politics across European nations were fought on radical discursive territory, especially seen in the neoliberal programme of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and, conversely, the socialist programme of François Mitterrand in 1981.
However, beginning in the 1990s and coterminous to the end of the Cold War and the expansion of the European Union, politics within and between European nations has taken a less radical political character. New Labour accepted many of the tenets of Thatcher’s liberalism and offered minor alterations. More recently, the Global Financial Crisis inspired a ‘technocratic’ approach to politics, where ‘managers’ known for their competence were promoted in Italy and Greece. In this sense, competence is constructed as success at governing neoliberal economic and social life, rather than the ability to win radical political debates and foster change.
This paper argues that the absence of radical political debates has led in some cases to a lack of civic engagement, and in others the resurgence of radical forces, especially on the hard right. It has also contributed to the lack of trust in European Union institutions.
