*** PASCAL ORY: Peuple souverain. De la révolution populaire à la radicalité populiste. Editions Gallimard (5 rue Gaston Gallimard, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 49544200 – fax: 42841697 – Email: gallimard@librairie-gallimard.com – Internet: http://www.gallimard.fr ). « Le débat » series . 2017, 252 pp. €21. ISBN 978-2-07-269344-1.
Extremes are such that they end up getting closer together. This is the lightning conductor of this “historic essay” in which a French historian gets back to the roots of the Populist radical left and right in an attempt to identify what unites them and what they share. This turns out to be a lot of things. The author's intellectual approach is daring and, without any doubt, will be deemed incongruous or even decidedly misplaced by the actors at the heart of this study but it is patently obvious that his analyses provide very useful clarification to the contrary, of a phenomena that is in an ascending phase in our current epoch.
As a means of immediately drawing the reader in, Pascal Ory straightaway establishes a link between “two fables from November”. One of them witnesses Lenin seizing power by not just overthrowing the Czar but indeed the social democrat, Alexandre Kerenski, the ephemeral beneficiary of the February 1917 revolution. Then he deals with something much closer to our times, given the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House. What is the link that the author establishes between these two historic events and moments that produce the tremors of this kind of “eruption”? The people. The people or, rather, what takes hold of them at these crucial moments: the soldiers and peasants' Soviets, in one case; the victims of the “elites” in another, through a caricatural speech from a capitalist that is immediately understandable to those who have been left behind by globalisation and who translate the slogan “America first” into practice by "Your jobs will come back".
Through these two figures who are as antinomic as they possibly could be, the author calls for the reader to explore the question through the knowledgeable company of the lexicon of populism and radicalism. Through his demonstration, which is both immensely detailed and hugely enlightening, he shows how, “populism is an ideology of synthesis that enables the right to find the path to the working classes by adopting the style of the left”. In the Russia of yesteryear, as in the US of today, but also everywhere else in the world where populism has prevailed or is manifesting itself once again, this ideology proceeds from the, “fundamental postulate of popular sovereignty having been confiscated” and is characterised by “a strong identification with the national community” as well as a, “clear personalisation of the leadership, the ideal populist model that makes this personalisation into the place where these contradictions can be resolved”. Popular sovereignty and authoritarian democracy are themes that are meticulously examined before the author highlights the fact that populism also has a political meaning that expresses itself in a keyword: nationalism. It is here, “that the essence of its modern manifestation lies” insofar as this concept occasionally promotes an unholy alliance between left and right. A quotation from Barrès in 1898 is testimony to this, “from both the heights of society to the backwaters of the provinces, as it is in the order of the moral and material worlds, the world of trade, industry, agriculture and even on the building sites where competition exists between French workers, the foreigner is a parasite and is poisoning us”. At a time when Mexicans or Muslims are conveniently replacing Jews as this ind of scapegoat, these ideas are rediscovering a renewed vigour in the world today. Moreover, the author argues that fascism is never very far away from populism.
In the second part of the book, Pascal Ory gets to grips with the theme of radicalism and seeks to demonstrate to what extent this, “is a myth that brings extremes closer together in a common rejection of reform and compromise by facilitating, if needs be, a shift from one to the other”. He suggests that it is possible to, “reread the whole history of political radicalism, of both the left and right, in the perspective of the history of religious radicalism and, in this case, the connection to universalist monotheism”. This leads the author to point out that in the 21st-century, the radical form of populism, “in Christian lands assumes the clothes of the evangelical preacher” and in “Muslim lands that of the fundamentalist imam”.
The author explains that the problem is that, “in certain conditions of temperature and pressure, the radicalism of the left or Populist radicalism can obtain power” which inexorably leads to a “disaster”, which the author explains as the recurrent failure of Populist and/or radical experiences in the past that never provide the necessary lesson. He argues that, “the tragedy therefore has an excellent future ahead of it”, given the political extremists currently gaining ground throughout the world. He also points out that in the light of Brexit, the populists are never as close to power as when the fringes of a traditional political party, such as the Conservative Party in United Kingdom, insidiously allow themselves to be dragged into a form of extremism...
Michel Theys
*** APOSTOLIS FOTIADIS: Pouvoirs hors de contrôle. La distorsion post-démocratique de l'Union européenne. Editions Kastaniotis (11 rue Zalongou, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3301208 – fax: 3842431 – email: info@kastaniotis.com – Internet: http://www.kastaniotis.com ). 2017, 120 pp. €9.54. ISBN 978-960-03-6203-9.
Why do the executive bodies of the European Union fail to respond in cases of blatant irregularities? How is it that the institutions are built but are not necessarily controlled? How do organised interests respond in this dystopian context? In what way is the European stability mechanism really European? Was the agreement between the Union and Turkey really made by European countries? Was Greece really at risk of leaving the Schengen agreement at the peak of the refugee crisis? It is to these burning issues in Greece that Apostolis Fotiadis provides the answers in this book. This specialist journalist in European immigration policy and ethnic conflicts in the Balkans is the Inter Press Service Russia correspondent in Greece and he points out that the Europe of “democratic values” is rapidly shrinking and leaving a weakened bourgeois democracy within its body politic. The plethora of crises currently confronting European societies and the Union itself are the manifestation of this problem. In this study, the author seeks to demonstrate that what we currently see and hear around us is not sufficient to accurately interpret our situation. In his view, it is only by taking full and entire responsibility for ourselves that will help prevent another voyage in European history to “the end of night”. (AKa)
*** ALEXIS ARVANITIS: Comment (ne pas) négocier. Ce que nous enseignent les négociations Tsipras-Varoufakis. Editions Gutemberg (37 rue Didotou, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3642003 – fax: 3642030 – Email: info@dardanosnet.gr). 2017, 155 pp. €9. ISBN 978-960-01-1866-7.
On 13 July 2015, after 17 hours of hard fought negotiations, the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, left the European Council meeting tired and worn out to announce to the nation that he had managed to prevent the country leaving the euro. Later, he would himself would admit that negotiating mistakes had been made over previous months and in this connection referred to certain “illusions”. It was indeed a blow that he had received but it cannot provide a lesson for the leaders or the country without assistance of a serious scientific analysis. Alexis Arvanitis is a deputy professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Crete and in this book he provides an explanation of the mistakes committed by drawing on an economic scientific analysis and social psychology. He therefore provides a number of keys for improving negotiations in political or daily life. To this end, he begins by providing a brief explanation about the theory of games before explaining what should be the foundations of a win-win agreement. He also succinctly describes the principles of social psychology and then gives us the number of answers to the question of whether it was appropriate for Greece to negotiate under the threat of having to leave the euro. This book will not help us to rewrite history but it will be useful in the event of any future negotiations... (AKa)
*** FREDERIC VALLIER (Editor): EUROPE 2030. Les territoires prennent la parole / Local leaders speak out. Editions Autrement (87 quai Panhard et Levassor, F-75647 Paris Cedex 13. Tel: (33-1) 44738000 – Internet: http://www.autrement.com ). 2018, 382 pp. €21. ISBN 978-2-746-74668-8.
This book is entirely published in French and English and provides a multitude of responses to the question launched by the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR): “How do you see Europe in 2030?” These responses are interesting insofar as they come from around 100 different political leaders who are supposed to be as close as possible to citizens and therefore, in principle, those most sensitive to the feelings and hopes of the latter. These local and regional representatives have carried out consultations and reflections for two years “to invent a new future for Europe”. This process of dialogue and the discussions also included a CEMR Congress in Nicosia two years ago. Ahead of the democratic citizens' conventions initiated by President Macron, this anthology is seen as a catalogue of ideas that can help relaunch Europe and make it “more cohesive and responsive” in the future. In the first part of the book, “the role of the nationstate” is discussed with contributors asking whether they should “govern in partnership” in view of building the future together. To this end, (unsurprisingly) they call for “a strengthened local governance” through “effective and comprehensive decentralisation” and by trying to “give power back to citizens”. The final part of the book involves the contributors identifying what priorities to set out for meeting current and future challenges, particularly in terms of economic and social cohesion. Some of the contributions are pragmatic whilst others appear more rash and result, according to Frédéric Vallier, the Secretary General of the CEMR, from an unequivocal response that, “a local and regional Europe is intrinsically global, modern and humanist” and is what is wanted. In the postface, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing appeals to the younger generation to take power, in order to, “to reignite the flames… put an end to the activity of the political decision-makers who have been unable to push the European project forward”. It will be up to each and every citizen themselves to decide where they stand in this category... (PBo)
*** GIORGOS SIAKAS: Mesurer l'opinion publique. Editions Papadopoulos (9 Kapodistriou, GR-14452 Metamorphosi, Greece. Tel: (30-210) 2846074-5 – fax: 2817127 – email: info@epbooks.gr – Internet: http://www.epbooks.gr ). « Petites introductions » series. 2017, 112 pp. €10.99. ΙSBN 978-960-569-787-7.
Is it possible to know what the public really thinks about a variety of different questions? Is it reasonable to want to know the opinion of the population on the exclusive basis of data taken from a “sample” of around 10 or hundreds or thousands of people? Is this data exempt from error and are they really reliable?. It is to these questions and of course to many others, that Giorgos Siakas, a doctor in comparative studies working at the Institute of Research at the University of Macedonia, provides answers in this book. In it he presents the methodological characteristics of opinion surveys and describes the methods for collecting basic data, the way in which questionnaires are configurated and the samples selected in a process consisting of several different stages. He does, however, acknowledge that each step could contain an error and that all research is a continuing exercise whose overall quality depends on the ability of the researchers responsible to reduce the margin of error. As the author explains, by drawing on a number of different arguments, investigations are therefore productive, on the condition that interpretation of the results are systematically cautious and accurate. This in itself highlights the limitations of public opinion research surveys... (AKa)