DESCRIPTION Europe is facing a critical situation: after the 2008 crisis, both member-state and European Union’s democracies failed to adequately address the increasing fear, insecurity and uncertainties resulting from the crisis. The unfair distribution of the consequences of the crisis pushed citizens all over Europe to break up with the traditional sources of cohesion, including political parties, media, experts or public institutions. These phenomena occurred at the same time as the Arab Spring and the aftermaths of the second Iraq War derived into instability and, ultimately, several military conflicts in the regions beside the EU. In the particular case of the Syrian civil war, an increasing number of refugees flying from the conflict joined economic migrants coming from North African regions to Europe.
Neither Member States nor the European Union’s institutions managed to answer the impact of the crisis and adequately embrace/integrate the migrant population. Both issues, the rise of inequalities as a failure of the welfare state in Europe and the increase of migrant flows, fostered and are a breeding ground for racial, religious or ideological hatred. The distinct feature, compared to previous times when similar tensions arose, is that citizens are now channelling their claims through democratic means. New expressions of radical populism, nativism and far-right ideologies have burst into the European public sphere, in all three local, regional and European levels. This combination has turned the economic and refugee crisis into an also and mainly a crisis of politics.
The International Workshop on the European Crisis of Politics: Ethnoreligious pluralism and the rise of radical populism, nativism and far-right in Europe aims to address a dimension of this phenomena. It is intended to analyse, first, what does exactly mean the Ethnoreligious Pluralism in Europe to offer an evidence-based picture of the ongoing transformation. It will follow with a second panel focused on the radicalised reactions vis-á-vis this transformation, analysing how these movements have engaged the electorates. It will close with a panel analysing these phenomena within the crisis of politics focusing on the citizen’s fear and the impact of that fear on their political decisions. This last analysis will present the results of a project developed in six European Union’s member states.
The event will be held at the San Telmo Museum (Donostia – San Sebastian) on the 16th of June and will be open to the public. It will have a semi round-table format where experts will directly engage each other, with paper presentations and discussants’ reactions, while the public will be invited to participate in the debate.
LOGISTIC Date: 16/06/2017. 9:30 -14:00 Venue: San Telmo Museoa (Plaza Zuloaga, 1, 20003 San Sebastián, Guipúzcoa) Language: English, although questions from the audience can be in Basque/Spanish.
