Democracy

While far-right movements tighten their grip on Europe’s politics and seek to capture culture – buying media outlets, installing partisan figures in cultural institutions, and shifting the boundaries of public discourse – a counterwave is emerging. Across the continent, “artivists” are reclaiming culture as a space for democratic resistance and using art to promote solidarity and inclusion. Can they reawaken Europe’s political imagination and reengage citizens?

The European Union cannot ward off domestic and foreign threats without promoting democracy worldwide.

While it acknowledges the systemic risk Europe faces, the Democracy Shield falls short of addressing its root causes.

Ariadna Romans i Torrent looks at cities as microcosms of broader ideological battles.

Quantity matters more than quality when your goal is controlling the narrative, says Kata Benedek.

Art has a unique capacity to capture complexity, Lucile Schmid and Ladislav Miko tell Edouard Gaudot.

Sam Murray draws the contours of green cultural policymaking.

Across Europe, arts and culture are facing defunding, job precarity, censorship, marginalisation, and instrumentalisation by economic and political agendas. How do we assert the value of culture and protect artistic freedom in this challenging landscape? And under what conditions can culture meaningfully contribute to the ecological transformation?

This editorial introduces Acting Out: Arts and Culture Under Pressure, the winter 2025 print edition of the Green European Journal.

Fifty years after the death of the dictator, experts are split over how to educate younger generations about the legacy his ideology left.

We need a new narrative that foregrounds artificial intelligence as a public tool without pre-determined development and impact.