The world economic crisis of 2008-9 and the politics of austerity it ushered in saw the rise of mass movements of resistance in many parts of the world.1 In some cases, this formed the context for the radical left to… Continue Reading
The emergence of new left wing political parties in Europe in response to the crisis and government austerity policies has been discussed already in the pages of this journal.1 Specifically we have looked at the nature of the Podemos project… Continue Reading
A review of Alan Sennett, Revolutionary Marxism in Spain, 1930-1937 (Brill, 2014/Haymarket, 2015), £98/£18 Historical debate about the outcome of the Spanish Revolution (1936-37) has often centred on the dissident communist Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM). For the… Continue Reading
The emergence of so-called populist parties as a response to increasingly discredited political elites is a European-wide phenomenon. In most cases these parties have emerged on the right, if not the far-right. Not so in the Spanish state where Podemos,… Continue Reading
On 15 May 2011 thousands of people, mainly young, demonstrated all over the Spanish state under the slogans “For real democracy now” and “We are not commodities in the hands of politicians and bankers”. The demonstrations explicitly rejected the participation… Continue Reading
We are coming out of the tunnel,” affirmed finance minister Elena Salgado creatively, when the third quarter unemployment figures came out in late October. 4,137,500 people were jobless, 17.93 percent of the population available for work. The Spanish state’s official… Continue Reading