Europe & Central Asia Archives - Page 8 of 14

The Russian Resistance to Putin Has Just Begun

“I stand for peace in Ukraine and freedom in Russia. If I get arrested—well, let it be.”

March 1, 2022 • by Anastasia Shteinert

Since President Putin launched the war on Ukraine on February 24, thousands of people in more than 65 Russian cities have taken to the streets for anti-war protests. ...

The Russian Resistance to Putin Has Just Begun

Europe & Central Asia

Not about NATO

To frame NATO as a security threat to Russia caters to Kremlin propaganda

February 23, 2022 • by Mariia Shynkarenko

On Monday 21 Feb, on the eighth anniversary of the victory of the Euromaidan, Russian president Vladimir Putin effectively declared war on Ukraine. To justify this recklessness, he gave an hour-long pseudo-historical rant that portrayed Ukraine as an artificial state that owes its existence to Russia. He also accused the ...

Europe & Central Asia

Preparing for an Apocalypse

A manual from Ukraine

February 23, 2022 • by Angelina Kariakina

It’s important we develop a plan to give people a genuine feeling of agency—a feeling which, by the way, is exactly what Ukraine as a state needs while the rest of the world discusses its fate....

Europe & Central Asia

What’s at Stake in Ukraine

“If you want peace, prepare for war”

February 2, 2022 • by Mariia Shynkarenko

Thus, the potential occupation of Ukraine should not be seen as a local affair, nor should the country be viewed as a strategic sacrifice to appease Putin’s fears about NATO. Instead, it should be seen as a warning of how far he can push his might, if not properly restrained. ...

Europe & Central Asia

Goodbye Merkel, Hello … Who?

The German election and what’s to come

September 29, 2021 • by Nicolas Allié

One thing is clear about the 2021 German election: it is going to be consequential. Long-time chancellor and ostensible champion of democratic values, Angela Merkel, is leaving after 16 years in office. The consequences of this action are still uncertain. Germany’s electoral system is unique. Voters elect representatives to the German parliament, or Bundestag, and they cast two votes. The first is for who will represent ...

Democracy

“You Cannot Force Me to Look and Not to See”

Large-scale repression against students and the academic community in Belarus continues

September 13, 2021 • by Alaiza Pashkevich

A liberty to follow my own will in all things where that rule prescribes not,not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, as freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of Nature.—John Locke, Second Treatise of Government Kids in ...

“You Cannot Force Me to Look and Not to See”

Europe & Central Asia

How Banning Abortion Will Transform America

The Texas ruling takes us one step closer to the state surveillance of Ceaușescu’s Romania

September 7, 2021 • by Maria Bucur and Kristen R. Ghodsee

_____ Across the United States, Republican-controlled legislatures are outlawing abortion, with the hope of bringing the issue before a sympathetic Supreme Court. If they succeed in revoking women's reproductive rights, the U.S. will quickly become a different society—one resembling Communist-era Romania. “It was a horrible time,” recounts one Romanian gynecologist, referring to the period ...

How Banning Abortion Will Transform America

Democracy

What Jeff Goldfarb Understood

July 7, 2021 • by Zeyno Ustun

_____ In the summer of 2013, I was about to start my graduate degree at The New School for Social Research. A month before I sat in Jeff Goldfarb’s contemporary sociology class, I was in Istanbul—protesting, resisting, and critically thinking with many others about our collective actions, media activism, and the ...

Democracy

A Connection That Never Expired

In 1974, Jeffrey Goldfarb went to Poland to do research about democracy—and put down lasting roots

July 7, 2021 • by Elzbieta Matynia and Claire Potter

Claire Potter: Elzbieta, let's begin with when you met Jeff Goldfarb. Elzbieta Matynia: Jeff and Naomi Goldfarb came to Poland in 1973—Jeff was on an IREX fellowship, and Naomi attended some studio classes at the Academy of Arts. I had just begun my graduate studies. But we were both interested in the same ...

Capitalism

Data Cooperatives for Pandemic Times

To avoid ‘co-op whitewashing,’ experiments with data co-ops should be co-developed with communities connected to the long history and analysis of the various forms of cooperatives.

April 19, 2021 • by Trebor Scholz and Igor Calzada

To avoid 'co-op whitewashing,' data cooperatives must be shaped by those who need them most, rooted in cooperative principles and localized data....

Democracy

Winston Churchill’s North American Tour

In the summer of 1929, the future prime minister almost quit politics

March 30, 2021 • by Josh Ireland

_____ One night in the summer of 1929, Winston Churchill, who was staying in a bungalow owned by William Randolph Hearst, was horrified to see a bulky figure clambering through his window. The intruder, Winston realized, was his son Randolph, who seemed equally startled. Randolph had expected to find Hearst’s daughter-in-law, who ...

Europe & Central Asia

How the Most Powerful Frenchman in the World Embraced the Philosophy of Sade – and Lost All of His Power

Libertinage isn’t liberating, it’s a form of fascism

February 11, 2021 • by Mitchell Abidor

_____Recently, I’ve been watching Jalil Lespert’s Netflix miniseries Room 2806: The Accusation. This four-episode docu-drama recounts the rise and fall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, at the time the President of the International Monetary Fund and a leading candidate for the French presidency. Strauss-Kahn (familiarly known as DSK) was arrested in New York ...