_In the Progressive Forum

Dangerous liaisons! Niebuhrians and Neocons

10 August 2009. Therese Feiler exposes the ideological continuities in the foreign policy of Bush and Obama, as the Afghanistan War is spinning increasingly out of control. The theories of Reinhold Niebuhr, Obama’s favourite philosopher, turn out to be problematic for they seek to justify military interventions on the basis of an assessment of the human condition purporting to be both realist and pessimistic. Instead of confining themselves to merely justifying the war as a lesser evil, however, progressive thinkers ought to raise issues of moral responsibility - and, if need be, culpability. more

What did the Iranians vote for?

18 July 2009. Nora Mokdad interprets the Iranian election results - notwithstanding potential vote rigging - as an endorsement of Ahmedinejad’s policies. The results constitute nothing less than a rejection of Obama’s conciliatory gestures, with consequential implications for Iranian nuclear policy. This obstinate foreign policy, Mokdad concludes, plays into the hands of all those forces in Israel that advocate a proxy war against the pro-Iranian, Lebanese Hezbollah. more

Waves of Mutilation

16 June 2009. Ross McKibbin looks back in anger at twelve years of New Labour. The managerial style of politics embodied by Tony Blair encouraged a narrow worldview hinging on “the aspirational classes”. Alas, it was precisely this part of the electorate that lost faith in New Labour’s free-market policies, as household debt increased dramatically during the financial crisis. Even the considerable success in the fields of education and health risks being undermined by the current downturn. more

_Publications

The European Social and Economic Model

October 2008. Partly funded by the German Foreign Office, the Progressives Zentrum  has conducted a detailed study of the current and future state of the European Social and Economic Model in the aftermath if the EU eastward enlargement. Investigating the socio-economic developments of the two largest new member states Poland and Romania, it became evident that debates on preventive and economically efficient forms of social welfare provision have as yet to gather momentum in these countries. All the same, one can discern a considerable interest in European modernization discourses. The German administration is therefore well advised to engage with Eastern European thinkers and political practitioners alike, thus opening up the possibility of a genuinely European modernization partnership. more