Portugal | openDemocracy

“Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property system.”

- Walter Benjamin, 1936

Politics, punditry, and the foreign gaze: the crisis in Portugal and the media

Rui Lopes and José Borges Reis 17 May 2013

Porous boundaries between politicians and pundits, rigid austerity and a zealous attempt to please foreign observers can only have a destructive effect on Portuguese society.

Europe’s guns, debt and corruption

Frank Slijper 27 April 2013

This second of two essays on military spending and the EU crisis, explores the role of the European arms trade, corruption and the role of arms exporting countries in fuelling a debt crisis, and why these 'odious' debts need to be written off. See Part One here.

Europe's Middle East policies: a southern European twist

Nathalie Tocci and Lapo Pistelli 25 February 2013

More coordination and strategy are needed in Europe's response to the sinister signs of stolen revolution. The political-strategic impulse has come from the south in the past. In the current economic crisis this should be more the case, not less.

Portugal and the eurozone crisis: the well-behaved pupil plays truant

Eunice Goes 27 September 2012

The people have finally realised that the troika-imposed austerity is not working in Portugal. In fact, the austerity packages are not working in Ireland (another good pupil of the troika), or in Greece, or Spain, or Italy.

Withering carnations

Julia Knobloch 16 February 2012

After airing an opinion piece criticizing Portugal’s Angola politics, a radio show is pulled and questions about censorship abound. Is the dire economic situation undermining Portugal’s democratic institutions?

Portugal: the day after

Sofia Diogo Mateus 6 June 2011

Last night, Portugal joined the ranks of 21 of its fellow European states by electing a right-wing government. Can it lead the country out of its historical crisis?

Xenophobia: Europe’s death knell

Les Back and Alex Rhys-Taylor 10 May 2011

The Europe that is dying is the one that remains hostage to its past. Another Europe is not only possible but is in fact fast becoming an urgent necessity. This would be a Europe of vitality, open to connections, that has let go of its civilisational conceits

Europe and its myopic leaders

Eunice Goes 9 May 2011

Europe’s leaders are reversing their historically generous role in assisting countries out of criminality and fascism. What we are seeing now therefore strikes at the heart of the European project not just the euro.

Portugal: no country for young men?

Susana Moreira Marques 26 March 2011

A comic duo in the Eurovision, a new hymn against high-qualified slave labour and a Facebook protest on March 12, brought back the dormant spirit of revolution to the streets of Lisbon.

This week's editor

Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

Europe from the bottom up

European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

A social Europe must be a political Europe
Bo Stråth

As Europe is provincialized: a reply to Etienne Balibar
Sandro Mezzadra

European debate

A republican call for a basic income
Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark

Nuclear non-proliferation

Women and the Arab Spring

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

Mali - the plot thickens

Remote control war

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