*** MONICA SIMEONI: A Morbid Democracy. Old and New Populisms. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Human Rights Studies" series No. 3. 2014, 151 pp, €40.70. ISBN 978-2-87574-233-9.
No doubt the recent election results from the United Kingdom might encourage some to believe that everything is for the best in the best of all worlds, but are the election results of such a nature as to convince people that democracy is doing well? The answer to this question is obvious for anyone who observes with concern the rising power throughout Europe of political groupings or movements that cultivate populism, nationalism, euroscepticism and europhobia tinged with xenophobia in order to prosper on the back of the fears and bitterness of citizens who behave as if they were lost. How did we get to this? What are the causes of this democratic malaise that is so profound that it is pushing ever more members of the middle classes to fall for the sirens of extremism?
Sociologist Monica Simeoni provides answers to these crucial questions in this book, which was first published in Italian (Une democrazia morbosa. Vecchi e nuovi populismi. Carocci Editore, Rome). The author, a lecturer at University Sannio in Bevenento and the pontifical University of Latran, provides the answers by rightly revisiting the pathologies that Spanish thinker José Ortega y Gasset discerned at the beginning of the last century, be it in Morbid Democracy (an essay written in 1917) or in The Revolt of the Masses, a book in which he discussed the danger of a middle class that has lost its sense of identity paving the way for a 'totalitarianism and a democracy dangerous to governments and even the citizens themselves.' This warning finds its full meaning in an epoch in which narcissistic individualism is triumphing, in which the collective community steps aside to make way for the rights demanded by all and sundry, in which individuals have 'privatised' the ideals and values of democracy, in which lost politicians discard 'experts' lacking in popular unction, in which 'the Other is "experienced" as a competitor for one's own rights'… In this way, everything is put in place so that through the 'Crowds' lacking in education, the concept of what Rousseau called the 'general will' slides into a dangerous and potentially disastrous 'audience democracy.
In the second part of the book, Monica Simeoni looks at the disfunctionings that are part of this slippage and that go back to the roots of populism, a concept that is 'polysemic, complex, multi-facetted and impossible to pin down to any simple, linear definition.' She sees a 'counter-democracy' emerging that puts citizens first despite the fact that they can be unable to understand the complexity of the world in which they are living and their main motivation is their own personal interests, populism being useful to them as a self-interested receptacle. Pointing out the roots of populism in Russia and then in the United States, she sees a similarity between those who gave birth to the People's Party - which then became the Populist Party before merging with the... Democratic Party - and today's Occupy Wall Street movement, their common enemy being the world of finance and the banks that has become too powerful. The Populist Party too was a relentless opponent of... paper money, which is echoed in today's allergies in some circles to the euro. One will have to get used to it because populism flourishes gaily in times of crisis, the crucial thing being to ensure that the 'average man' who has become the direct master in the City does not sacrifice democracy and collective institutions on the altar of his short-term interests. Hence the importance of giving him a robust education, as Ortega demanded, and seeking a way of bringing the European dream back to life. This will imperatively require answering the following question: 'Is it possible to create and foster an egalitarian society, where citizens are enabled to achieve their life projects and where a second chance is offered those who fail, so that nobody is condemned to a destiny of poverty?' By not asking this question and not providing credible answers to it, the European Council and everyone who presides over the fate and destiny of the European Union are running the risk of being the best possible servants of… populism! Michel Theys
*** JAN KYSELA (Ed.): The State as a Giant with Feet of Clay. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, P.O. Box 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2014, 182 pp, €44.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65375-3.
This book starts with a view shared by the six authors: 'Contemporary States - European in particular - are great in terms of the scope of tasks of their governments, but weak in terms of their ability to carry out these tasks efficiently.' All these elements combine to hinder the fully sovereign action of States that is dissected in the book by political scientists and sociologists active at the Faculty of Law at Charles University in Prague. They analyse the constraints exercises by States through an ever more imperative and wider international law, by the pre-eminence now to be accorded to respect of human rights, by globalisation, by the rising power of NGOs and multinational companies that escape the control of national leaders, and also by the distance that citizens are placing between themselves and national leaders, by the rise of justice over politics and the explosion of information technology… One of the major brakes on the omnipotence of States is related, however, to the advent of the European Union, a 'hybrid entity in which one finds both federating and confederating elements build on the chassis of an international organisation,' as Prof. Kysela defines it. Jan Grinc and Jana Ondrejková provide an in-depth essay on this, in which they observe that the Member States, while remaining undoubtedly the 'masters of the treaties,' are no longer necessarily the 'masters of the Union itself' since majority voting can require States to make decisions they didn't want. The mechanisms foreseen to ensure the protection of national identities, and the principle of subsidiarity in particular, are analysed in detail, which does not prevent them reaching the conclusion that sovereignty is no longer what it used to be and this new configuration cannot avoid raising problems of legitimacy. (PBo)
*** BERND ZIELINSKI, JEAN-ROBERT RAVIOT (Eds.): Les élites en question. Trajectoires, réseaux et enjeux de gouvernance: France, EU, Russia. Peter Lang (see above). Travaux Interdisciplinaires et Plurilingues series, No. 22. 2015, 165 pp, €52.50. ISBN 978-3-0343-1413-8.
It is evident that the political and business elites did not emerge unscathed from the crisis that broke out in Europe and the rest of the world. The level to which they were discredited is such that historian and economist Bernd Zielinski and professor of Russian studies Jean-Robert Raviot, both lecturers at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre-la Défense, dare to ask in the introduction to this book whether one isn't these days, as Charles Wright Mills wrote fifty or so years ago about the United States, facing alliances and coalitions of the elites in power that are managing to partially wriggle out of democratic control. In this worrying context that is paving the way for extremism and other forms of populism, and which eurosceptics and Europhobes are also taking advantage of, is was undoubtedly useful to restate the classic sociological questions about the recruitment, reproduction, circulation and self-justification mechanisms for the elite. The experts brought together in this book provide answers adapted for our times in order to understand the directions taken by business and political leaders facing globalisation of the economy and the partial Europeanisation of decision-making centres. After comparing the theories of the elite developed by economist Joseph Schumpeter and sociologist Karl Mannheim in the first half of the last century, there is a contribution on the ideological and normative parameters that determined the preferences of European political elites vis-a-vis strategies for tackling the financial crisis. Based on an empirical study in 2009 in seventeen countries of Europe, Prof. Heinrich Best of Iena University demonstrates the lack of broad consensus on the best way out of the crisis, the controversies in this connection being played out on the basis of a strengthened hierarchisation of member states based on their economic weight. He says the elites of struggling countries would have preferred intervention by supranational bodies, but the elites of Germany and other countries in a position of power prefer the inter-governmental approach. Clearly, states Prof. Best, this evolution signifies a 'weakening of the European Union,' since 'during the most critical phase in the euro crisis, decisions were taken not in Brussels and Strasbourg, but in Berlin and Karlsruhe.' Two other contributions are more French in nature, with an analysis of the morphology of the elites responsible for expertise in financial regulation in France and a confirmation of the persistence of France lying outside the mould with its Grandes Ecoles, where its business (and political) elites are still trained. Finally, there are two articles on the sociological changes to the elites in the post-Soviet area, the former Nomenklatura having, some say, donned new clothes and come back to life… (MT)
*** STELLA ZAMBARLOUKOU, MARIA KOUSI (Eds.): Les aspects sociaux de la crise en Grèce. Editions Pedio (10 rue Davaki, GR-11526 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3390204-6 - Fax: 3390209 - Internet: http://www.pediobooks.gr ). Sociologie series. 2015, 480 pp, €26. ISBN 978-960-546238-3.
The global economic crisis hit Greece with particular violence and the Greek economy is already in its fifth year of recession and its fourth year of implementation of austerity measures, but the crisis has not spared any aspect of political, social and economic life. This volume of essays tries to reveal the negative consequences of the economic crisis in all domains, be it the economy, politics, social affairs or the environment. The sixteen authors, all lecturers at universities in Greece and abroad (mostly in Crete), draw up a balance sheet of this cataclysm, each in his favoured domain. Also looking at the causes of the crisis, they analyse its various stages from the beginning and the signing of the first loan agreement up until the situation of recent months. Their contribution to the scientific debate proposes new areas to be explored. A useful tool of scientists and social science students, the book is published at the right time for readers wanting to learn in detail and in depth about the impact of the current crisis in Greece. (AKa)
*** ANNA WOLFF-POWESKA: Memory as Burden and Liberation. Germans and their Nazi Past (1945-2010). Peter Lang (see above). Geschichte - Erinnerung - Politik series, No. 10. 2015, 419 pp, €84. ISBN 978-3-631-64051-7
After the Shoah and other atrocities committed during the Second World War, Germans had to rebuild their country and identity. But how could they come to terms with their Nazi past? How could they commemorate the countless numbers of dead? How is it possible to be a German patriot in the wake of Auschwitz? Günter Kunert, a German writer, put the problem like this: 'The word "Germans" hardly passes through my mouth; It leaves an unpleasant taste on my palate. This term is like some kind of vessel, brimful of old and new contradictions.' Professor of history and political science at the Human and Social Science University in Poznan, Poland, Anna Wolff-Powêska highlights these contradictions and tries to understand how they arose. She addresses the chronological evolution of Germany from 1945 onwards, going on to look at the rituals of memory, primarily commemorations. She provides elements of a reply to this debate which is as wide-reaching as it is complex, warning: 'The dialogue with the past, not only the German one, remains open. […] It is the future generations who, with their maturity and courage, will determine whether the memory of National Socialism will remain a burden or will become a liberation.' (HHe)
*** Futuribles. L'anticipation au service de l'action. Futuribles Sarl (47 rue de Babylone, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53633770 - Fax: 42226554 - Email: revue@futuribles.com - Internet: http://www.futuribles.com ). May-June 2015, No. 406, 120 pp, €22. Annual subscription: €115. ISBN 978-2-84387-419-2.
This issue of the future prospects review, Futuribles, contains an article by Jean-François Drevet who again points out the limits of the current European institutional model and openly hints that the only possible solution is federalism. The diagnosis made by this former official is unequivocal and difficult to challenge! What about the euro? Its management and level of coordination among the nineteen countries that share the single currency 'remains below what is necessary to guarantee the security of savings for citizens and the relaunch of economies.' Governance of the euro is also deficient when it comes to 'each government taken in isolation, along with their common action at summits, where it has proved impossible to get the general European interest to prevail.' With respect to external security, the EU 'lacks lucidity as much as it does capability,' while for domestic security, 'every man for himself provides opportunities for terrorists, who do not fail to exploit them.' All these elements make Jean-François Drevet think that yet again, the rise of external dangers can be a good advisor and get European leaders to go down the road of federalism. He argues: 'Nobody ever becomes federalist out of conviction, but because at a certain point in time, it was the only possible solution.' He adds that 'even though they may behave in a perplexing way in elections, people are also able to be more lucid then their leaders,' the latter therefore are not entitled to stick to the restrictive clothing of the 'sleepwalkers' who, through their behaviour, paved the way for World War One. Needless to say, the other topics raised in this issue are of a similar level of interest. (MT)