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What does Europe want? An interview with Volt Co-President Reinier Van Lanschot

Over the last decade the European Union has been confronted with one crisis after the other. On the national level this situation prompted the creation of new political parties, which entered the scene abruptly. Notable examples include Podemos, founded in the wake of the indignados movement and two years into the European debt crisis; the […]

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Interviews

Referendum Interrupted: Has Catalonia a future?

The following interview, which was completed just prior to Catalonia’s declaration of independence, was conducted by Griselda Qosja with drs. Jaume Castan Pinos and Alexis Vahlas. In a 2012 piece for the Huffington Post, the writer Nannette Vonnegut recalled that living with her father, Kurt Vonnegut, was like living with an elephant “that was trying […]

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The times they are a changing: Rebuilding collective action in Albania

Following a wave of protests in Zharrez, Albania, Griselda Qosja spoke with activists affiliated with two of the leading leftist organizations in Albania, Organizata Politike and Thurje. From Aristotle to Hegel, the distinction between state and market has been the basis of understanding the role of civil society. In Albania, however, since the 1990s, unfortunately the […]

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The Marvelous and the Everyday: How Rama is failing the Left in Albania

On a May evening six years ago, standing close to the venue where the opposition’s MPs are on strike, darkened by the night and time, solitary and pensive, Edi Rama looks as if painted by some Neue Sachlichkeit artist. “You have a weak handshake” – he tells me and shows how a handshake is supposed […]