Global power and resistance
Within the European Union, Council Common Position 2008/944/CFSP of 8 December 2008 defining common rules governing control of exports of military technology and equipment is based on criteria that are intended to assess the countries of destination for the respective arms based on respect for human rights and international law, conflict prevention, democracy, regional stability and peace-keeping. As a rule, these considerations take precedence over the economic and industrial arguments that arms-exporting Member ...
read more "Arms Production and Employment: Discourse, Scale and Methodological Challenges"
read more "Arms Production and Employment: Discourse, Scale and Methodological Challenges"
Lessons for collective action from the fight for the right to housingHow should we welcome people at assemblies? How should an assembly-based, decentralized movement be organized? How can we carry out non-violent direct action? How should we negotiate with others? How can we change narratives and perceptions? How can we harness the power of the streets? Many movements answer these questions over time through trial and error, but PAH aims to contribute to the debate by reflecting on its own experiences and presenting them in this manual. We take a step back and analyze the ...
read more "LA PAH: A Handbook"
read more "LA PAH: A Handbook"
Understanding and confronting the militarisation of the European UnionAbout the book How is the European Union (EU) preparing itself for the challenges that lie ahead? How will it deal with the climate, economic and social crises we are facing? What steps is it taking to tackle the root causes of these crises? Answers to these questions are vital to those living within and outside the EU. The EU’s priorities and the subsequent allocation of political attention, personnel and financial resources matter a great deal. Disturbingly, the EU and its Member States have taken...
read more "A militarised Union"
read more "A militarised Union"
About the book
The agricultural produce that ends up on our table from supermarket shelves and market stalls does not tell the story of the lives of the countless men and women who toil in the fields and greenhouses of Italy in conditions and at a pace that are often reminiscent of modern slavery. In this production chain, thousands of “invisible” workers, many of them migrants, are isolated by Italian law and easily blackmailed due to the indifference of the European Union and its inability to agree on harmonisation processes for the effective ...
read more "The Struggle of Farm Workers in Italy"
read more "The Struggle of Farm Workers in Italy"
The Financial Transaction Tax (FTT): From Keynes to the current COVID‑19 crisis The decline of the ‘glorious 30 years’ of Keynesian policies in the post-Second World War period, the fall of the Bretton Woods system and the currency crises in Russia and Asian countries have led to a debate surrounding the possibility of taxing transactions on the foreign exchange market. The most influential voice to suggest such a tax was James Tobin, a US economist of the Keynesian school and winner of the 1981 Bank...
read more "The impact of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) on economic recovery and financial stability"
read more "The impact of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) on economic recovery and financial stability"
Left-wing responses to the economic crisis after CoronaWhile politicians argue about whether it is "socially legitimate" and "economically acceptable" to tax the wealth of the rich, a recently published study reveals a growing social and economic gap between workers and capital owners. What have been the fiscal and economic policy responses of the Italian government to this growing inequality and what left-wing solutions are being put forward? When considering Italy's current economic and financial crisis, one must take into account two premises. Firstly, since ...
read more "From one crisis to the next?"
read more "From one crisis to the next?"
Interview with Martin Schirdewan about the EU budget and the veto being exercised by Poland and HungaryAndreas Thomsen: Hello, Martin. Hungary and Poland have vetoed the EU budget. Can you tell us briefly what this conflict is all about, and what this means exactly for the EU budget and of course also for the EU coronavirus aid packages? Martin Schirdewan: The Hungarian Fidesz and Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS) governments have embarked on a series of authoritarian restructuring measures in recent years that are set on, among other things, putting an end to ...
read more "No agreement in sight"
read more "No agreement in sight"
By using the police, judiciary and the threat of imprisonment to silence internal opposition, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is seeking to revive the 'Ottoman fantasy' and to reinvent, bit by bit, the Turkish state established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In this, Erdoğan, the leader of the country's Justice and Development Party (AKP), has the unconditional backing of both Turkish nationalists and Islamists. The aims of this new regime are clear: to re-establish the historic power of the...
read more "Erdoğan’s fantasy of a Turkish nationalist, Islamist empire poses a serious risk for the world"
read more "Erdoğan’s fantasy of a Turkish nationalist, Islamist empire poses a serious risk for the world"
Economist and journalist Martin Khor, whose life was cut short by cancer on 1 April 2020, was a standout figure in the struggle for a radical transformation of global economic relations. Born into a middle-class family in Penang (Malaysia), he initially carved out a career in public administration and in academia before taking up his life's mission, the fight for a just new world economic order, as the Research Director of the Consumers' Association of Penang and from 1990 onwards as the Director of the Third World Network (TWN). ...
read more "Martin Khor – a life spent fighting for a just global economy"
read more "Martin Khor – a life spent fighting for a just global economy"
When the facade of a 'slowly but surely' approach results in a missed opportunityIn an editorial published on 12 April 2020, the Institut Rousseau warned of the illusions and delusions surrounding the idea – which was on everyone's lips at the time – of 'coronabonds' and a European funding mechanism. We wrote: "the main benefit of eurobonds ... would be to add a budgetary funding capacity exceeding that of all [EU] Member States taken individually. This means assuming that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and that more investments would be allowed in ...
read more "The European recovery plan"
read more "The European recovery plan"