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Healthcare tailored to the interests of capital

The following article was originally published by the Serbo-Croatian online platform, Bilten. It is republished here with that site’s kind permission. During the electoral campaign of 2013, the Socialist Party of Albania, then in opposition, made a stunning promise for a Third-Way party. Its chairman Edi Rama stressed that once in power the Socialists would […]

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Andreas Karitzis: The Left in power. What can we learn from the case of SYRIZA? (Part II)

Note from the LeftEast editors: In this long interview with George Souvlis, Andreas Karitzis reflects on his experience as part of the Syriza leadership during the crucial years 2012-2015, on its underpreparedness for the historic project it embarked on, on the odds stacked against it, and on the configurations of power in today’s world. While Syriza’s fight for a […]

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Andreas Karitzis: The Left in power. What can we learn from the case of SYRIZA? (Part I)

Note from the LeftEast editors: In this long interview with George Souvlis, Andreas Karitzis reflects on his experience as part of the Syriza leadership during the crucial years 2012-2015, on its underpreparedness for the historic project it embarked on, on the odds stacked against it, and on the configurations of power in today’s world. While Syriza’s fight for a […]

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Leo Panitch: “What does it mean to smash the state? This is our great challenge.”

Note from the LeftEast editors: Our comrades from the Serbian Left-wing portal MAŠINA spoke to Marxist political economist Leo Panitch (York University) during his stay in Belgrade. There he was a guest at the conference The Return of Utopia (BCS), organized by the Center for Political Emancipation. This is the first appearance of the interview in English. Its original […]

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Turkey’s fragile Bonapartism

Turkey may hold a referendum on the transition to an authoritarian presidential system as soon as late March; however, Erdoğan’s Bonapartist shift does not herald stability for the ruling class, nor a solution to the crisis of neoliberalism. The argument that the contemporary world panorama resembles that of the 1930’s has almost become a cliché. […]

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Transgression as ends and means: The trial of Kaur Kender

Early last year the Estonian writer and controversial public figure Kaur Kender was formally charged with production of child pornography. The charges related to a novella Kender penned in the winter of 2014 entitled Untitled 12, which depicts the violent sexual abuse of women and children by an unnamed protagonist. The persecution of the novella’s author […]

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“Of the past let us make a crime…”: Anti-Populism and the Politics of Memory in Bulgarian Liberalism

Notes from the LeftEast editors: this article is published in cooperation with Bilten.Org where it appeared in Serbo-Croatian on the 12/16/2016. Note from the author on the English language publication: In this article I focus on the latest chapter of the ongoing ‘memory wars’ in Bulgarian public and political life. I tease out the demophobic implications […]

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The big game: Ulyukaev, Sechin and Russia’s neopatrimonial privatisation

Ilya Matveev// Nov. 21, 2016// OpenDemocracy-Russia The arrest of a federal minister shows that, in Russia, the government and the country’s largest state company are increasingly turning to force. Russia’s Minister of Economic Development Alexey Ulyukaev arrives at Moscow’s Basmanny Court. (c) Maksim Blinov / RIA Novosti. Last week, for the first time in Russia’s […]

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Undermined: how the state is selling out Ukraine’s coal workers

Vitalii Atanasov// Dec. 19, 2016// OpenDemocracy-Russia Ukraine’s miners were once heroes of socialist labour. Today, after years of sector-wide neglect and corruption, there are new plans for further mine closures, leaving thousands of people without work. September 2016: miners from Novovolysnk No.10 in west Ukraine protest the government’s plans to close their mine. (c) RIA Novosti. […]

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Tones of Vio-liberalism

CLICK your fingers. Click them again. Watch. The sound – the click – isn’t produced by two fingers rubbing each other, but by your middle finger hitting your palm, making contact. Now try to make a click without hitting your palm. What do you hear? An annoying, quiet, ineffectual scratching. CLICK CLICK—two tweets blow out […]