European Political Landscape Research Articles

Tackling Health Inequalities in Times of Crisis

Abstract Across Europe, people are grappling with a multitude of challenges, spanning from the cost of living to housing, food insecurity, climate change, conflicts, and social unrest. These adversities significantly impact individuals’ health and wellbeing, and create the conditions for persisting health inequalities. At the root of these crises are unjust economic systems, in which the privileged few benefit while the majority face difficulties on a daily basis. Societies across Europe are witnessing rising polarisation and discrimination. Competitiveness and security are emerging as key priorities in the new European political landscape, with health and wellbeing pushed to the sidelines. Tackling health inequalities in times of crisis requires urgent, targeted action across societal sectors and levels. Education emerges as a crucial equaliser, alongside income and social safety nets. Moreover, effective climate strategies must prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable population groups. This plenary session lays the groundwork for understanding our contemporary, rapidly evolving landscape and its implications for addressing health inequalities. What lessons can we draw from new approaches across sectors that meet social and health needs, and how can we navigate these challenges – and sail those waves of innovation – to ensure equitable health and social justice for all? Moderators Caroline Costongs Director EuroHealthNet Cristina Abreu Santos Vice-President Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA), Portugal Keynote speakers Fran Baum The Stretton Institute, The University of Adelaide, Australia (by video message) Katarina Ivanković Knežević Director for Social Rights and Inclusion, Directorate-General Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission Panellists Didier Jourdan UNESCO Chair and WHO Collaborating Centre ‘Global Health and Education’, University of Clermont-Auvergne, France Jill Litt Professor of Environmental Health in the Environmental Studies Programme, University of Colorado, USA and Senior researcher, Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal), Spain

‘Hungarian Factor’ in Central and Eastern European Politics of France (Spring — Summer 1920)

This article examines the role and significance of the “Hungarian factor” in the central and eastern European political landscape of France during the period from April to August 1920. The novelty of this research lies in its analysis not only of the bilateral Franco-Hungarian interactions but also of how Paris’s perceptions of Hungary’s place in Europe were intertwined with other vectors of the Third Republic’s foreign policy. The study utilizes published French diplomatic documents, the diary of General Edmond Buat, Chief of Staff of the French Army, and select reports from General Artus de la Panouse, the French military attaché in the United Kingdom. The author concludes that the “Hungarian factor” influenced the central and eastern European policy of the Third Republic in a contradictory manner. It is demonstrated that France’s view of Hungary as a defeated nation served Paris’s objectives of affirming its status as a victorious power, consolidating a belt of friendly states in Central-Eastern Europe, and expanding its financial and economic presence. At the same time, it is emphasized that Hungary was not perceived as a direct threat to the interests of the Third Republic; rather, in the context of the Red Army’s advance westward, it could potentially be integrated into an anti-Soviet coalition.

From Civil Society Organisations to Pirate Parties to Digital Democracy

Reshaping our political and social systems for a sustainable future requires a multifaceted approach that addresses several key areas, such as: political reform, social change, economic development, environmental preservation, or technological innovation. In order to achieve a sustainable future, we need to implement its ideals in every societal sector. When dealing with the political system, we cannot ignore the antidemocratic tendencies arising or taking over our everyday life even in the Western World. Under these circumstances, political reform is a must and we have to admit that one of its most important tasks is strengthening democracy. The actual political discourse is full of ideas like proportional representation, direct democracy, sustainability-focused governance, transparency, accountability, and equity. Among the many actors that try to solve these problems there is a group that proposes some new solutions, based on the means of Information Society, Pirate Parties. Emerging from the digital world, they are a fresh wave of political movements with deep roots in online activism. These parties, some born from anti-establishment protests, have rapidly spread across the globe in just two decades. Their journey is one of transformation, from grassroots movements to established political players. Pirate Parties have a clear digital agenda, focusing on issues like copyright reform, open access to information, and online privacy. They champion net neutrality and the free flow of knowledge. However, most of them have recognized the importance of broader democratic values for political success. Beyond their digital focus, Pirate Parties also advocate for traditional democratic ideals, including civil rights, transparency, and combating corruption. They promote free speech, direct democracy, and exploring alternative forms of citizen participation in government, often leveraging technology (e-democracy). The future impact of Pirate Parties remains uncertain, but their influence is undeniable. They’ve challenged traditional political norms and brought issues of the digital age to the forefront. Pirate Parties have reshaped the European political landscape and inspired similar movements around the world. My paper aims to briefly present these political formations, with special regard to their origins in and their relations with civil society. After outlining the broad framework, I present some of the most notorious of these formations.

Der Kaiser reist inkognito: Joseph II und das Europa der Aufklärung by Monika Czernin

Reviewed by: Der Kaiser reist inkognito: Joseph II und das Europa der Aufklärung by Monika Czernin Joseph W. Moser Monika Czernin, Der Kaiser reist inkognito: Joseph II und das Europa der Aufklärung. Munich: Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe, 2021. 383 pp. As the Habsburg monarchy's first Enlightenment-era monarch, Emperor Joseph II is well remembered for his twenty-five-year reign (1765–90), fifteen years of which he ruled alongside his mother Maria Theresia (1765–80). Most of his ambitious reforms were enacted in the ten years of his sole rule (1780–90)—he ultimately laid the foundation for the modern Austrian state administration during his reign. Of course, this raises the question how Joseph II was able to understand the complexities of his multicultural realm and the challenging changes on the European political landscape during his reign. Unlike his mother and previous Habsburg monarchs, Joseph II was an avid traveler attempting to understand his vast empire that had been recently enlarged by conquests gained from the Ottoman Empire. Monika Czernin provides answers to how Joseph II came to understand his empire in Der Kaiser reist inkognito: Joseph II und das Europa der Aufklärung. In this book, we get a picture of a ruler trying to understand the world he lived in, in order to preserve the monarchy he ruled over, rather than complacently letting time pass him by from his palace in Vienna, as had been his mother's practice. He traveled incognito across his empire and Europe, trying to avoid seeing fake displays of servility, which would have impeded him from acquiring an understanding of the various countries he ruled over. Traveling as "Count von Falkenstein," he didn't always succeed in concealing his identity, but he managed to rule Austria from afar on these trips with an efficient network of couriers supplying him with all the necessary correspondence. [End Page 109] Czernin based her book on Joseph II's original writings that are stored in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna. While the book is not a scholarly text based exclusively on historical sources, Czernin does offer her readers an historically accurate picture of Joseph II's travels by citing correct dates as well as direct quotes from Joseph II's writings. Very little attention has hitherto been paid to Joseph II's travels, making this book a welcome contribution to Habsburg history. The book starts with Joseph II's trip to Frankfurt in 1764 for his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor. This was an official trip (Hofreise) alongside his father Franz I, who died the following year during another official trip in Innsbruck. Joseph II decided to travel incognito in 1768 to visit the Banat region that had only recently been captured from the Ottoman Empire. Then in 1769 he traveled to Italy, many of whose northern states were still under Habsburg rule, but he went south to Rome and Naples as well. In the same year, he traveled in the opposite direction to meet his mother's nemesis, King Frederick II of Prussia, at the Neisse River. In 1771, he visited Bohemia and Moravia, which was suffering from a famine due to failed harvests and the troubling system of serfdom. Then, in 1773, he visited both Transylvania and Austrian Galicia in the same trip, much to the displeasure of his mother, who could not see any value in these itinerant endeavors. In 1777, he visited his sister Marie Antoinette in Paris, where he presciently observed that unreformed absolutist rule had no future in Europe. He visited the Austrian Netherlands in 1781, which had a complicated relationship with the Austrian mainland and in fact would not remain under Habsburg rule much beyond Joseph II's life. The final trip that Czernin chronicles is Joseph II's trip to Russia in 1787 to visit with Empress Catherine the Great, during which she showed off Russia's newest acquisitions in the South, including Crimea. Ultimately, the book is more than just a travel chronicle, because Czernin skillfully demonstrates the logistics of long-distance travel across the European continent in the second half of the eighteenth century but also the dire need for the emperor...

Populist radical-right governments in Central-Eastern Europe and education policy-making: a comparison of Hungary and Poland

ABSTRACT In the European political landscape characterized by the strengthening influence of Eurosceptic, radical-right, and populist parties, Hungary and Poland represent insightful cases for understanding how the populist radical right uses its power in government and acts in full capacity to design education policies. From a systematic comparison of the education policy trajectories taken by Hungarian and Polish populist radical-right governments, we identified three characteristic patterns of populist radical-right education policy-making in the two countries: commitment to a conservative-nationalist agenda through comprehensive, systemic interventions, the implementation of Christian identitarianism through conceptualising public education as Christian upbringing, and finally, the gradual extremisation of the education agenda combined with the growing influence of transnational conservative knowledge transfer centred on the ‘gender wars’. We find that the boundary between far-right nativist and nationalist positions and Christian-conservative standpoints has faded away, and the two governments, which identify as Christian conservative, have increasingly mainstreamed far-right agendas.

‘Mountains, glowing hot’: The Radical Volcanic Aesthetics of Wordsworth's Early Poetry

Wordsworth's early poetry was criticised by contemporary reviewers for its ‘obscurity’ and ‘harshness’, and even Coleridge, recalling Descriptive Sketches (1793) in Biographia Literaria (1817), describes a ‘harshness and acerbity connected and combined with words and images all a-glow’. Coleridge also claimed, however, to have perceived ‘the author's genius as it was then displayed’ in apocalyptic lines describing a stormy Alpine sunset evoking a volcanic eruption, with its ‘mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire’. This essay argues that, in addition to exploring Wordsworth's millennial hopes for post-revolutionary society, the poem's sublime volcanic imagery reveals an interest in geological processes and related religious and political allegories tied to the controversial debate between ‘Neptunian’ and ‘Plutonist’ theories of earth formation. Volcanic metaphor furnished Wordsworth with an aesthetic and epistemological framework within which to explore the human condition and the mind's relationship to the natural world at a time of seismic shifts in the European political landscape.

How do women are represented in the European legislative assemblies: comparative analysis of the left and populist political parties’ practices

The article is devoted to the problem of gender equality in politics and the representation of women in legislative bodies in Europe. The authors draw attention to the fact that the role of women in the European political landscape is increasing against the background of the crisis of traditional political parties. There is a relationship between the percentage of women involved in the work of legislative bodies and the political orientation of the parties that nominated them. As a hypothesis, the idea is accepted that the countries with the highest gender equality index and strong positions of social democratic parties are main donors for women in politics. Populist parties are mainly supporters of classical European traditionalism, therefore, in countries with strong right-wing populist parties’ women are less represented and there is an uneven distribution of legislative seats in favor of men. By analysing the empirical base (electoral statistics and discourse analysis), the authors come to the conclusion that gender parity has not been achieved in the most European countries. The most effective way to enforce women representation in the European legislative bodies is to implement quotas at the level of national legislation, as well as to use of voluntary party quotas. However, the artificial nomination of weak female candidates who do not find support among voters and thus ensure guaranteed electability for strong male candidates. This is especially true for right-wing populist political parties, furthermore this trend is typical for most European countries. In addition to quotas, the European countries use special educational and social policies to minimise the pressure of gender stereotypes and expand the practice of women's political participation at all levels of government, which has yielded positive results; in today's convocation of the European Parliament, women are represented more than in previous convocations.

The republicanisation of empire between Universal Peace and war in the early United States

ABSTRACT Enlightenment writers have proposed projects to secure long-lasting peace within the belligerent environment of the European political landscape since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Madison and Rousseau, both declared critics of the Perpetual Peace project of the Abbé de St.-Pierre, were united in their opinion on the primacy of popular sovereignty within states to fulfil the goal of universal peace on the international level. Whereas the American constitution was built on a ‘peace pact’ to secure the union’s survival, the French republican experiment was confronted with hostility from their European neighbours at the very outset. French minister Genêt’s plans for French intervention on the American continent, following the Girondins’ belligerent strategy against European monarchies, however, threatened to involve the early American Republic in universal war rather than peace. The so-called ‘Empire of Liberty’ that Thomas Jefferson, as well as Genêt, proclaimed for the future United States was based on a melding of unionist with republican principles, as it had been in the thinking of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, one of the fiercest opponents of the Anglo-Scottish incorporated union of 1707. This article aims to examine this connection as well as its enabling of a reconciliation between republicanism and the striving for empire as it took place on the American continent in the nineteenth century.

РЕГИОНАЛИСТСКИЕ ПАРТИИ В СТРАНАХ ЕВРОПЫ: ФАКТОРЫ УСПЕХА

At the end of the XX - beginning of the XXI centuries, regionalist parties have become reputable and influential political players in the European political landscape, however, the unevenness of their development in the cross-regional dimension raises the question of the factors that impact their success. The article aims to test the hypothesis developed in previous works based on other empirical data and using different ways of operationalizing variables. The study is carried out by the method of multiple linear regression on the empirical material of all 313 administrative-territorial units of European countries that fully correspond to the concept of "region". As a result of the analysis, it was found that the socio-cultural and historical specificity of the region has the most stable influence on the success of regionalist parties, while the socio-cultural one is of utmost importance. The level of economic development of the region is also statistically significant, but its effects are multidirectional. In the countries of "old" Europe, more developed regions tend to have regionalism, while in "new" Europe, on the contrary, regionalist parties are more successful in underdeveloped regions. The hypothesis regarding the positive impact of decentralization on the development of regionalist parties is not confirmed.

Політика запобігання злочинності в Україні у світлі статистики злочинності за вісім місяців 2022 року

A new wave of military invasion of Russia to Ukraine in 2022 became the event that significantly changed the European political and legal landscape as well as impacted economic and cultural life in all European countries and the EU in general in context of perspectives of the EU – Ukraine relations. Therefore, an issue of the Ukrainian crime and corresponding crime prevention policy is to be included in the agenda of the EU – Ukraine relations both for the short and long-term perspective. Consequently, this article is focused on further analysis of crime rates in Ukraine in the light of corresponding crime statistics for the period of January 2013 – August 2022 being based on official data from the Office of General Prosecutor. The article is a continuation of the author’s research focused on crime rates in Ukraine in wartime period and impacts of the 2022 period of the Russian aggression against Ukraine on the Ukrainian criminal justice system. Having summarized up presented above ideas, we have come to the following conclusions that reflect the state of things within the wartime Ukrainian criminal justice system. Crime statistics for August 2022 proved our previous preliminary conclusions of the subject of crime trends in Ukraine. It was August 2022 that changed the general picture of the crime trends in Ukraine. Firstly, it concerns with crimes committed with the use of firearms and explosives. Our fears that “saturation” the Ukrainian society with firearms would lead to increasing criminality seem to have grounds. More grounded conclusions will be drawn later, at least based on crime statistics for the period of 9 months of 2022. Nevertheless, already demonstrated increase in crimes with the use of firearms and explosives put on the agenda an issue of safety and security. Much more interesting issue is one of drug-related offences in Ukraine. It is surprising that the 2022 Russian invasion to Ukraine has not ‘cut’ crime trends in the area of illegal possession and use of drugs. In contrast, official data demonstrate that the wartime period is associated with increasing of drug-related crimes in Ukraine. As far military crimes and war crimes are concerned, corresponding crime rates are expectedly rising in the light of the continuous aggression of Russia against Ukraine. General conclusion on the crime trends in Ukraine is concerned with the fact that both criminality and law-enforcement bodies as well as citizen have become adapted to conditions and restriction of the wartime period.

Belgian Politics and the Spanish Civil War

During the second half of the 1930s, Belgium and its institutions were about to undergo testing. The first serious test came about after the shocking results of the legislative elections held on May 24, 1936. Léon Degrelle’s party, the Rex, gained 21 seats. Consequently, a new coalition government had to be constituted in order to safeguard political stability. In parallel with this, a redefinition of the European political landscape was taking place due to the effects caused by the remilitarization of the Rhineland in March 1936. Vis-à-vis that new European scenario, the Belgian government decided upon a new foreign policy that aimed at liberating the country of its international commitments enshrined in the Versailles and Locarno treaties.
 Both political levels were narrowly connected, influencing each other. Given this connection the Belgian political debate was distorted when it was transferred to the realm of emotions provoked by the Spanish conflict.

Poland and Hungary: Democratic Backsliding and the Shifting European Political Landscape

This study focuses on the role of Poland and Hungary in the shifting European political landscape, especially considering their recent democratic backsliding. Methodologically, the impact of domestic factors, specifically those involved in democratic backsliding, are qualitatively considered as a source of Poland and Hungarys international policy, focusing on European politics. There is significant literature available on the waves and counter waves of democratic change in the world, which is used to provide context for the cases at hand. Then, the theory of consolidation of democracy is considered, including whether Poland and Hungary were really cases of consolidated democracies. The developing Polish-Hungarian coalition, in the European context, is then considered. The two nations role in driving the EU towards a more restrictive migration policy during the migration crisis is discussed, as is the future EU role of Poland and Hungary. The article finds that whether through extreme pressure, setting the agenda or leading the way, as during the migrant crisis, or forming a new European political grouping, Poland and Hungary look set to actively attempt to mould the EU, and European politics more generally, to their liking.

All-Pervasive Legacies of Socialist Constitutionalism? The Case of Judiciary

The success of the legal transitions occurring in the 1990s was quite dubious. Although, as a result of enlargement of the EU, much of the “other Europe” became part of the European Union, it would be too simplistic to assume that, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the region became part of Western European political and legal landscape. While the books of the old era were discarded, legislation repealed and new institutions created, one should not underestimate the continuing strength of the old values, principles and legal thought in general. After all, the authors of those discarded books remained in the academia, even if they seemingly started to produce – virtually overnight – new works, while defending new values and principles. Alongside with the academics, the entire legal personnel of the old era survived the systemic change, and this contributed to the persisting spirit of old legal culture. That is why the philosophies of the old socialist legal system were able, not only to survive, but to govern a substantial portion of the post-socialist legal and judicial discourse. The deepest layers of the old legal culture are resistant to sudden changes by their very nature. They seldom have a direct connection to the former official political ideology, and they are often clothed in the new legal vocabulary. Furthermore, the most persistent features of socialist legal culture are often those linked to the region’s illiberal pre-socialist past, although substantively modified during the era of socialism. I will show some examples of old socialist concepts which seem to be alive and well in the new legal system. First, I am going to deal with the authoritarian model of judicial process, which appears to prevail in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. The socialist conception of a judicial process continues to haunt the region even several decades after the fall of “existing socialism.” The parties continue to be viewed as passive objects in the post-communist litigation. Second, I am going to explain a specific socialist novelty, the concept of supreme courts’ interpretative statements, legislating from the bench without any real-life case pending before those courts. Last but not least, I will show the gradual decline of the activist role of constitutional courts in the region and the return to the tradition of self-restrained judiciary influenced by politics and politicians.

Hate in the Homeland: an interview with Cynthia Miller-Idriss

As we move into a post-Trump presidential period in the United States, with shifting sands across the European political landscape, questions about how the far right is evolving are of increasing i...

The role of economic and cultural changes in the rise of far‐right in Greece: A regional analysis

AbstractThe recent strengthening of right‐wing and far‐right populism is one of the greatest political manifestations of our times and a dominant feature of the current European political landscape. In Greece, its rise coincided with a period of a prolonged financial aid programme (“bailouts”) imposing harsh austerity measures and deep structural reforms. The objective of this study is to assess the extent to which the spatially differentiated gains of Golden Dawn, one of the most anti‐establishment, anti‐migrant and anti‐EU political parties in Europe, were due to (socio‐)economic or cultural changes (or both) that took place in the country in recent years. The findings provide evidence in favour of the combined role of (socio‐)economic and cultural grievances; however, the former seem to be more important than the latter.

Political Influence of Online Platforms: YouTube’s Place in European Politics

Social media platforms are today one of the primary means of political expression and campaigning. The growing entanglement of politics with the online sphere raises interest in how these new types of media shape the social and political reality. While previous research tends to focus on Twitter and Facebook, limited works exists on the political influence of YouTube. This is even though YouTube is the second-most visited website and provides unique ways of engaging users and disseminating political messages through the combination of rich communication functionality with immersive audio-visual media content. Unfortunately, the influence of social media platforms such as YouTube on politics is difficult to analyse, due a lack of transparency and qualitative data. Independent researchers and the public have limited ways to access meaningful statistics about the video service. This article derives a taxonomy to classify YouTube’s ways of political influence from a case-study-driven analysis of YouTube in the European political landscape. Our taxonomy aligns with traditional theoretical concepts from media effects theory, particularly framing, priming and agenda-setting. We provide a brief discussion of the current regulatory landscape in the EU, and highlight gaps that might need improvement. We conclude by considering the question of whether YouTube is a political actor.

A Valencian-style Coalition Government: el Botànic

Coalition governments are common in the European political landscape in various tiers ofgovernment. However, such coalitions were an exception in the history of the Valencian Autonomy until 2015, which marked a new stage with the so-called El Botànic governments. Which factors explain this change in the Valencian political system? What are the features of such coalition governments? Can this model be applied to other political systems? This paper addresses these and other issues. First, it looks at what led to coalition governments in both 2015 and 2019. Second, it studies the model of coalition government. The hypothesis tested is this: El Botànic is a coalition government whose success in terms of stability and governmental action is framed within a specific Valencian political context.

The Resurgence of the Radical Right in European Policy

This article analyzed the rise of far-right political parties and movements in the most developed European countries - Germany, France, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway as well as in the Visegrád Group. The current direction of the political and social development of those major European states shows great resemblance to the 1980s. The political framework is defined by escalating disappointment in social and governmental institutions, growing political fragmentation and increasing complexity of political communications. Under such circumstances radical right parties firmly secured their presence in the national parliaments and enhanced it over the last decade. Alongside their electoral success on the supranational level, it indicates significant alterations in the European political landscape. A new reality is being built while the right radicalism strives to demarginalize itself with its high adaptivity to the essential political institutions. The article analyzed causes and consequences of the ongoing changes. It suggested a new angle to assess the present radical right’s policy effects. Proceeding from the neoinstitutional approach it provided an insight into the key assumptions of radical right, far-right contagion and institutional isomorphism, while outlining the electoral dynamics and distribution of the radical right parties and assembling the concepts of their classification.

The Gilets Jaunes

This contribution is dedicated to an in-depth look at the cycle of the Gilets Jaunes protests that marked the French and European political landscape between November 2018 and the beginning of 2020. An unexpected social and political phenomenon, this movement accompanied the presidency of Emmanuel Macron and influenced his political agenda. Through “co-research” work done in direct contact with the movement, the essay analyzes the social and geographical composition of the participants, the political context in which it emerged, and its forms of organization and struggle. It argues that by subverting the frustration of social and geographical declassing, the Gilets Jaunes managed to constitute an unprecedented case of democratic counter-power.

D. Trump as a Factor in the Political Demarcation in Europe

The article analyzes the role of the American leader as an indicator of internal political contradictions in European society. The subject of the research is the socio-political differences in Europe in the context of attitudes towards the political course and personality of US President D. Trump. The purpose of the study is to identify the main political forces that approve and share D. Trump's policies in the EU countries, the reasons for support, and efforts to advance their positions. The US initiatives to change the European political landscape are disclosed. The reasons for the growth of support for the US President and the transformation of attitudes towards him in European countries are revealed. The author reveals the conflict potential of socio-political challenges and the sharpness of disagreements regarding the policy of the White House. Conclusions are drawn about the similarity of the socio-political delimitation in European countries and the United States, a high level of D. Trump's influence on the internal political processes in the EU is noted. The author came to the conclusion about the strengthening of support for the American president, the growing popularity of the conservative parties of the «political alternative» and the deepening of the internal political division, both in Europe and in the United States.