Europe’s radical right and radical left share a distaste for the status quo – but while one turns disquiet into votes, the other fails to make an impact.
While often lumped with other European populist parties, Beppe Grillo’s M5S is a movement of activist fans mobilized by the messages of his “celebrity brand”.
We’re not sure if the cure, the populist outsider, will work and make life better. but we are willing to experiment as the old certainties of representative politics wither.
Protests in South Africa are about more than just service delivery of basic services such as water and electricity. They reflect a wider crisis about the failure to build a more equitable society.
Podemos positioned itself as leading a revolt by the people against the political system. Now, as Spain’s third-largest party, it is part of that system and has some difficult decisions to make.
For many contemporary observers, the Spanish Civil War was seen as very much of a piece with the war against Hitler and Mussolini. But then things changed. Why?
The future of democracy depends on developing a left-wing populism that can revive public interest by mobilising political passions in the fight for an alternative to neoliberal de-democratisation.