98. 2024: European Inflection Point? Decency Deep Dive

01/17/24 • 43 min

Every new year seems to heighten the impression that History is accelerating, and this may well not be new. The novelty lies in the fact that with every passing year, that impression seems to root itself in firmer ground. This is not just about the Ukraine conflict, which will turn two years old in February, and seems to have trapped the European Union (EU) in a quandary of indecision between scrapping its end-of-history pieties to decisively win the war, or protracting its limited military aid to continue its controlled damage on Russia, at the risk of eternalizing the quagmire. History is accelerating in the Middle East too, where Israel’s offensive against a genocidal terrorist group risks turning the accusation of genocide against it, while the threat of regional escalation has become palpable in Yemen, where the Iranian-backed Houthis threaten to disrupt sea trade. To welcome 2024, this week we take one of our deep dives into the stories that we believe will shape the year’s European news cycle, such as the EU parliamentary race in June and the attendant rise of the national-populist right, elections in other latitudes, and how Europe will tackle the normalization of global conflict.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

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97. Geert Wilders and the Rise of Platinum Populism, with Caroline de Gruyter & Ewald Engelen

In a daring move, we kicked off March 2021 quoting none other than Francis Fukuyama, titling our episode "Getting to Holland" as a twist on Fukuyama's famous cliché of “Getting to Denmark”. The episode came in the heels of Mark Rutte's re-election as Dutch Prime Minister, which seemed like an apparent vindication of the Fukuyaman ideal of Northern Europe as the endpoint of political development. Not only had the country championed rule of law and the welfare state, but Rutte's liberal-centrist politics of moderation seemed to stand on a thick layer of consensus that other European nations lacked. But fast forward to November 2023, and the Dutch political scene takes a dramatic turn with Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) seizing victory a month ago. Join us this week as we unravel the beliefs driving Wilders, from welfare chauvinism to skepticism of Islam, and explore the implications for the upcoming EU parliamentary elections in June next year. Our esteemed guests, Caroline de Gruyter and Professor Ewald Engelen, bring their expertise to bear in delving deep into the dynamics reshaping Dutch politics.

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99. The Left-Right Divide: A Eulogy? with Rob Ford & François Hublet

In 1789, members of the newly-created National Assembly in Paris split between those for whom the king should retain an absolute veto, sitting to the Assembly President's right, and those who thought he shouldn't, sitting to his left. The primordial version of our structuring political cleavage was born: the party of order vs. the party of progress. This left-right divide has served as the founding metaphor of modern European politics. More than two centuries later, many are penning the obituary of that division. In 2017, the election of Emmanuel Macron against Marine le Pen seemed to usher a new cleavage, loosely defined as open vs. closed by some, nationalist vs. globalist or liberal vs. authoritarian by others. But is the left-right divide of yore buried just yet? Today we take stock of the evolving morphology of political fractures and map the main cleavages dividing European politics. With us this week: Francois Hublet, of Le Grand Continent, and the University of Manchester's Rob Ford, co-author of Brexitland (2020) and Senior Fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) network.

As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts or the platform of your choice, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at [email protected]. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon, where you can access the full episode including an extra section where our guests discuss the forthcoming EU elections: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.