Tag Archives: ideology
Slavoj Žižek: Every state needs its own Balkan
“Every state needs its own Balkan” With this words philosopher Slavoj Žižek started his lecture on ideology and the fall of state borders. The lecture was given in Italian Gorizia which was until 2007 a border town with Slovenia and is a well known habitat of Italians and Slovenes. From this point of view, the [...]
Posted in Humanities & Social Sciences, culture Also tagged Balkans, borders, culture, Europe, Italy, Kusturica, multiculturalism, philosophy, Slavoj Žižek, Slovenia 4 Comments
Tower of Babel
Every now and then a little language war breaks out in the EU institutions. Spain lobbies for Spanish to become one of the official working languages (at the moment: English, French and German) because it is one of most spoken languages worldwide. Germany (sometimes together with Austria) claims that German became more popular after the [...]
Posted in Brussels, European Debate, European Union Also tagged EU, EU Reform, Europa, Europe, European, European Commission, European Politics, France, language, nationalism, politics 1 Comment
Why not a referendum? Look at the polls!
OK, I know this is not very ‘democratic’ but I am happy that someone opened up the debate on the limits of participatory democracy. Lately, the idea of holding a referendum is often presented as THE one and only democratic instrument that we have (especially by Madame Royal). Strangely enough, only relating to EU issues, [...]
Posted in European Debate, European Union, Humanities & Social Sciences Also tagged democracy, EU, EU Reform, Europa, Europe, European Politics, France, political philosophy, political theory, politics 5 Comments
Russia: a 'soft power' running out of gas?
Recent news from Russia are not positive at all. Somehow it feels as if Russia is marching back to Soviet times. The list is long and truly worrying: Economically, the country is run by a handful of oligarchs. Energy is used as a political weapon with a little help of the dubious state controlled Gazprom. [...]
Posted in Eastern Europe, International Politics Also tagged Europe, Kremlin, political philosophy, political theory, politics, Russia, Russian Politics Leave a comment
Quotes of the Week (VII)