Event Series

EUROPEAN SPRING

April–October 2016

This series of events focuses on the upheavals that Europe is experiencing at the moment: migration movements and the “moral panic” (based loosely on Stuart Hall) associated with them encounter austerity policies and the effects of the financial crisis in 2008, which have become the new “normal.”

Nonetheless, there are attempts being made to democratize the democracy, attempts at implementing the right to rights, and attempts to use local leeway under the buzzword “urban citizenship.”

The EU crises in the EU’s economy, the euro, and migration-policy have made the deficits in its democracies more than obvious. So: democratize Europe? What reference area can Europe offer for a global, transnational concept of democratizing? Movements such as DIEM21 are now attempting to take the first steps in this direction: is it a pure fan club for the politician-pop star Yannis Varoufakis or one of the possible and legitimate answers to the democratic crisis of the EU, and the European crisis of democracy? French philosopher Etienne Balibar has drafted the concept of “federal nationality” as a European citizenship. What would grassroots European democracy movements look and act like? And with the demands for a new European demos, would opportunities be created for procuring social rights for all of those whom the European nation states have denied civil rights until now?

Various guests active in civil society, border crossing services, art, and media figures will formulate theories on the relationship of democracy and crisis, and discuss them together with the audience.

First event of the series:

Three thesis for the democratization of democracy in social movements

Saturday, April 23, 6 p.m.
Guests: Katerina Anastasiou and KurtO Wendt
Further info here »