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“Your Security Terrorizes”: An Interview with Ana Ivasiuc

That is an alternative political project worth thinking about: how to replace security with solidarity? In this light, I am profoundly against using the word ‘security’ in progressive political activism. To claim that the security of the subaltern is important, too, is to be blind to the fact that the powerful and propertied can never take that claim seriously in a system built on the primacy of property and of capital.

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Socialism and development: seven theses on global integration

The pieces in the dossier 1989 Thirty Years Later were developed around the workshop “Eastern Europe after 30 years of transition: New emancipatory perspectives from the region,” held in Prague on 25-26 October 2019, organised by the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam) and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Prague), coordinated by Agnes Gagyi and Ondrej Slacalek. In addition to […]

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Solidarity Economy and the Commons in Central and Eastern Europe

Note from the LeftEast editors: The article has first appeared on the Green European Journal Website, from which we reprint it with the kind permission of the author. It is based on the working paper “Solidarity economy and the commons: implications for Central and Eastern Europe” by Gergő Birtalan, Ágnes Gagyi and Zsuzsanna Pósfai, supported […]

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All posts Eveniment Theory

New Politics in Post-Socialist Europe and the former USSR: a workshop for sharing knowledge and experience

This article comprises a report on the proceedings of a conference held in Tbilisi, Georgia on 11-14 October 2018, co-organized by a number of foundations as part of the Transnational Institute’s New Politics project. In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, the world finds itself in a new era of political turmoil. If […]

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Gender Studies in Hungary are now being linked to broader struggles: Interview with Anikó Gregor 

LeftEast editor Agnes Gagyi spoke to Anikó Gregor, one of the faculty in charge of the Gender Studies masters program at Budapest-based Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), shut down by the governments de-accreditation of Gender Studies programs in November. Gregor’s analysis places the ban in the context of Fidesz’s strategy of emphasizing liberal democracy’s failures, economic […]

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All posts Protests

Georgia’s last popular presidential elections: Interview with Nino Khelaia

Note from LeftEast Editors: On December 16th, Salome Zurabishvili has been sworn into office as Georgia’s first woman president amid continued denunciations by the opposition that her election was rigged. LeftEast editor Agnes Gagyi has interviewed Nino Khelaia on the post-electoral situation in Georgia and the wider political context that surrounds it. What would be your […]

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Populism or people’s movements? Interview with Mary Taylor

Ágnes Gagyi: “Populism” seems to have become a central notion in debates about contemporary politics. How do you see the socio-political process that led to this centrality within the US? How would you characterize the political and discursive fields that shape the meanings and applications of this notion in contemporary US debates? Mary Taylor: Let […]

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Hungary’s ‘Lex CEU’ and the State of the Open Society: Looking Beyond the Story of Democratic Revolutions

This article appeared originally on the Cultures of History Forum at the Imre Kertész Kolleg, University of Jena. The Cultures of History Forum’s invitation to discuss the ‘Lex CEU’ and the state of the open society focuses on threats against academic freedom and civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. It reads the Hungarian government’s attack […]

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Smartphones and the European flag: the new Hungarian demonstrations for democracy

Part 1. Events On 25 October, tens of thousands in Budapest marched against the government’s new proposal to introduce a 0,5 EUR/1GB tax on internet data traffic. After organizers officially closed the event, protesters moved on to the headquarters of the ruling party, Fidesz, brought down part of the fence, threw old computer parts at […]