Southern European politics and government

In January 2018, at the request of Grant Kester editor and founder of FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism, I asked several dozen associates around the world if they would submit a report about current, local conditions of cultural innovation and resistance, especially in opposition to the rise of extreme Right wing politics since the 2016  Brexit and US elections. One year later these reflections have been collected in a  double issue of FIELD numbers 12 and 13 and available online at: http://field-journal.com/issue-12?cat=30 . This essay serves as the introduction to this special issue. I wish to thank Grant Kester for encouraging me to organize this project, along with his remarkable team of UCSD based editors –Erika Barbosa, Noni Brynjolson, Paloma Checa-Gismero, Jonah Gray, Alex Kershaw and Jordan Rosez- as well as the outstanding artists, intellectuals and activists who contributed their insights in the form of thirty-six international reports including:

Ireland (Dublin)
Emma Mahony

UK (Plyymouth)
Kim Charnley

Poland (Warsaw)
Kuba Szreder

Serbia (Belgrade)
rena raedle

Australia (Melbourne)
Nikos Papastergiadis 


Germany (U. Zeppelin, Friedrichshafen)
Karen van den Berg

France (Paris)
Vanessa Theodoropoulou

S. Africa (Cape Town)
Nkule Mabaso

Mexico (Puebla)
Alberto López Cuenca 


Colombia (Bogotá)
Jimena Andrade, Victoria Argoty, Daniel Castellanos,
Camila Cifuentes, Miguel Estupiñán, María Gamarra,
Guerthy Gutiérrez, Susana Lyons, Silvia Valderrama,
Esthefanny Yague, Nicolás Vargas. 


US Great Lakes Region, 
Dan S Wang

Brazil (São Paulo )
Andre Mesquita

Sweden (Gothenburg)

Fredrik Svensk

Russia (St. Petersburg)
Dmitry Vilensky & Chto Delat?


Puerto Rico/S.Bronx, 
Libertad Guerra & Monxo Lopez

China (Hong Kong)
Bo Zheng

West Coast (Bay Area), 
Jeffrey Skoller 


Palestine/Gaza, 
Amin Husain & Nitasha Dhillon

S. Korea, 
Heng-Gil Han

Italy (Venice)
Marco Baravalle

Philadelphia
Nato Thompson

Indigenous Canada
Lindsay Nixon

India
Mriganka Madhukaillya

Bangladesh
Katatare Prajapati Collective

Networked World
Chloë Bass

NATO Alliance 
Marc Leger

Hungary
Kata Benedek & Ágnes Básthy

European Academic Precariousness
Carlos Garrido Castellano

Con el propósito de fundamentar la propuesta denominada “El Ciberempleo: un esquema laboral innovador entre las instituciones públicas del estado de Guanajuato”, se preparó este documento para apoyar la toma de decisiones institucionales al respecto, en donde se revisó el marco legislativo federal y estatal que normativamente podría incidir en el esquema laboral basado en Ciberempleo.

A three part audio series completed under a research grant from the Metabolic Studios- looking into the evolution of contemporary modes of general cultural resistance within Europe in relation to local, regional, international and histories.

See link below to hear the audio.

Section 1- Leipzig- looks at the end of the biopolitical welfare state/workerist state model and the invention of the contemporary modes of subjective resistance. 1974 to today.

Section 2 - Milan- Post-Fordism and Precarity- With Italy's techno-communist labor struggles as a background, this section looks at the juncture of labor precaritization, cultural economics and the invention of new modes for work/life.

Section 3- Barcelona- Economic Crisis and the Common Life. Starting with the explosive globalization movement's dramatic appearance as just another moment in the long simmering tension between a state that does not care and common life, and focusing in on how the 2008 economic crisis made clear governance's disregard for common life- and opens up the space for generalized, non-identitarian resistance.

This article analyzes the impacts of ENGOs with respect to Maltese climate change policy in an EU context. In particular, focus is made on the politics of climate change in Malta and the EU in the first five years following the country's EU accession, which led to the setting of energy emissions targets by 2020. The main conclusion of this article is that ENGOs formed part of an EU-wide hegemonic formation on climate change, wherein a common position with binding emissions targets was reached. The common position was signified around the discourse of ecological modernization. EU multi-level governance provided an opportunity for ENGOs to put forward discourses for climate-change adaptation.

Immigration has become a litmus test of our societies’ capacity to treat people with dignity. The grim reality is that we enter a 2017 imbued with a solidarity and human rights crisis which will make the quest for social and global justice more demanding, but also more pertinent.
The article can be freely accessed on this link: http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/world/73043/2017_immigration_crisis_of_human_rights

Using Molina’s and Rhodes’ conception of a Mixed Market Economy (MME), this paper examines the current economic crisis in Greece by identifying the specific internal political dynamics of Greek political economy. After a critical discussion of the limits of Molina’s and Rhodes’ institutionalism – in particular, its problematic characterization of liberalization and its neglect of the power relations exercised in the process of structural reform – it argues that the process of ‘market colonization’ necessitates a politics of ‘de-democratization’, further exacerbating the crisis not only of Greek capitalism, but of the Greek state as well.

... For example, in the 2002 elections, well-known businessmen such as Ersin Arıoğlu, Muharrem Eskiyapan and Memduh Hacıoğlu, the union leader Bayram ... He was one of the members of the inner circle of Mr Bülent Ecevit when the party went through a major transformation ...

'Varieties of capitalism'have been conventionally delineated by the varying types of formal economy that exist. Given that the vast majority of employment globally is in the informal economy, this paper offers a new analytical framework which delineates varieties of capitalism by their degree of informalization and the character of the informal economy. Examining South East Europe through this lens using evidence from a 2007 Eurobarometer survey, the finding is that this region is a 'quasi-formal market economy'and its informal ...

Ciudadanos, a party founded in Catalonia in 2006, has recently acquired a major role in the Spanish political system. This article examines why it was formed almost ten years ago and how it has evolved since; its ideological principles and policy menu; the party organisation and leadership; the main determinants of its vote, and the structure of opportunities faced by the party in the 2015 general election. It considers Ciudadanos in two different contexts ‒ Catalonia and all Spain ‒ and in two different ‘time zones’: before 2014, when the party was mainly a regional force, and after that date. In each context, the party seems to have responded to the unsatisfied demands resulting from the double electoral market failure of the last decade in Spain and Catalonia.

1 Ciudadanos in Catalonia
2 Ciudadanos in Spain
3 Ideology, Party Programme and Policies
4 Party Organization and Leadership
5 Who Vote for Ciudadanos?
6 A Changing Structure of Competitive Opportunities
7 Conclusions

The case of Spain has attracted very little attention from academics and experts in the area of social policy, perhaps because it was under Franco's rule for a period of nearly 40 years. This Working Paper analyses succinctly the process of building a welfare system in Spain.

Policy change, especially the significant one, is something rare in Greece. Ruling political parties, as the legitimate decision makers, are not inclined to impose any significant change due to its unforeseen consequences. And yet, since Greece approved the rescue packages in 2010 and 2012 from international institutions, namely European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) –herewith “troika”, significant policy change started to appear. Generally speaking, each package consists of bailout funds and austerity measures. The latter is aimed at promoting sustainable fiscal balance for Greece mainly through fiscal policy tools to enhance revenue and reduce expenditure. Drawing from these instances, this research will attain two-folded goals which are to assess the extent to which policy change in Greece is deemed to be significant rather than incremental and how this policy change happens.  Based on the Punctuated Equilibrium (PE) model employed as the main analytical tool in this research, the extent to which policy change in Greece is considered significant can be seen from the drop in government expenditure, changes in some policy domains and the nature of policy feedback. Furthermore, this significant change can be understood by looking at the promotion of policy image done by policy entrepreneur and the change in institutional policy venue. The interaction between policy image and policy venue provides the chance for significant change to happen. It is supported by disturbance or policy punctuation on Greece’s political system in the forms of economic crisis and leadership change.

Keywords: austerity measures, debt crisis, fiscal consolidation, Greece, policy change