Trump, Putin, Erdoğan: Europe faces many challenges.
What role can culture play in overcoming xenophobia, hate, anger and anxiety? How should Europe deal with post-truth populism, nationalism and Twitter democracy? And can culture be one of the keys to restoring Europe’s lost confidence and breathing new life into European values?
It is a historical irony that, just as we find ourselves in a time of existential crisis, the European Union has been working on new strategic proposals for international cultural relations. Will they provide urgently needed answers to the problems threatening the Union’s cohesion?
What chance does the proposed concerted approach have in the face of growing nationalist tendencies? These are just some of the questions to which Slavoj Žižek, Jagoda Marinič, Timothy Garton Ash, Navid Kermani, Heribert Prantl, Claus Leggewie and other contributors to this volume seek answers.
Ladislau Dowbor’s paper in this book: The governance gap: Western democracy has a credibility problem. A study of 17 Latin American countries showed that half the population doubts the practice of democracy and is actually convinced that democracy is a system organised for the rich. The author believes that, given the socio-economic disparities, we cannot afford to ignore this disaster in slow motion. The problems will not disappear unless we organise ourselves to solve them. A plea for a new ‘Global Deal’.
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