Crisis, Austerity and Transnational Party Cooperation in Southern Europe

The most internationalist of all party families, the radical left has paradoxically always lagged behind in its cooperation at the EU level. The previous decade, however, the transnational character of the Eurozone crisis and its austerity-centred management provided a strong incentive to remedy that. By focusing on the relations between three prominent members of this party family at the time (SYRIZA, Podemos, Left Bloc), this book shows how and why the transnational cooperation on the radical left largely failed to deliver in a propitious context. With implications for the study of other party families, the book lays out the key factors that prevented the European radical left from coming together to provide an alternative to the neoliberal status quo in the EU.

Analyses the factors that may stimulate or, on the contrary, hinder transnational party cooperation Focuses on the case studies of SYRIZA in Greece, Podemos in Spain, and Left Bloc (Bloco) in Portugal Covers a wide variety of formal and informal channels for transnational party cooperation

Autorentext
Vladimir Bortun is a political scientist working on left parties, political elites, and transnational politics. He is currently based at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford, UK.

Inhalt

Chapter 1. United we stand? European integration and radical left transnational cooperation.- Chapter 2. The storm after the calm: Crisis, austerity and political turmoil in Southern Europe.- Chapter 3. The rise and stagnation of the radical left in Southern Europe: SYRIZA, Bloco, Podemos.- Chapter 4. We shall overcome: Transnational party cooperation in times of crisis.- Chapter 5. Cooperation by proxy: political foundations, social movements and intellectual networks.- Chapter 6. A lost decade: Incentives and challenges for transnational party cooperation.

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