The crisis of 2008 and the 15 May Movement
In May 2004, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) regained power after two years of massive protests against the Iraq War, neoliberal policies, and the anti-ecological policies of the conservative government of José María Aznar, which saw itself as a strategic ally of the Bush Administration in the ‘war on terror’.1
If Europe is for us first of all the name of an unresolved political problem, Greece is one of its centers, not because of the mythical origins of our civilization, symbolized by the Acropolis of Athens, but because of the current problems concentrated here. -- Étienne Balibar1
The 2012 elections
Striking differences appear between the old and the new (post-socialist) EU upon examining the 2014 European Parliament election. If the election had taken place only in the “old EU”, the winner would have been social democracy with 27% of the votes, followed by the European People’s Party (24%), radical left (9%), and other five political camps (hard Eurosceptic, soft Eurosceptic, Greens, liberals, and far right), each around 7%.
Randy Martin, Knowledge LTD, Toward a Social Logic of the Derivative (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015), 264 pp. paper, $29.95.
Babak Amini studies sociology at York University (Toronto). His research interests include the history of socialist thought, history of the labor movement, and workers’ self-management. b.amini86@gmail.com
This collection of articles gives an overview of the current state and outlook of the radical left parties and social movements across much of Europe, at a time when the global financial crisis and the resulting sovereign debt crisis have created new opportunities for them to grow.