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Explains current outrageous behavior against foreign, black, Jewish, Roma, Sinti, gay, handicapped, & elderly people in Germany in terms of the country's history of Nazism. Most concerned with placing anticommunists in positions of power after WWII, the Western allies allowed conservative elites who had served under the Nazis to reatin their political, industrial, commercial, & cultural positions. The Soviet plan was to replace the Nazi elite with a generation of communists & social democrats that was both authoritarian & antifascist. Since the collapse of state socialism in 1989, neo-Nazi crimes in the united Germany have dramatically escalated. Thus, it appears that Nazism survived in both East & West Germany because a racist & chauvinist ideology had not been completely eradicated in either state: in the West because it was compatible with the dominant conservative stance; in the East because it was compatible with authoritarianism. M. Maguire

This special issue of PORTAL constitutes an indirect, sideways reflection on the EU's move toward (re-)discovering, establishing, and promoting shared cultural values. It seeks to unveil not the official historical contexts and traditions in which contemporary inventions of cultural identity occur. Rather, its aim is to discover and listen to competing voices and alternative visions—be they cultural, social, political, literary or cinematic—that give different shape to trans-European identities and model union, commonality, and belonging, according to transregional or translocal values. The special issue, then, is an exploration of possible forms of frictions occurring across the European cultural and historical landscape. It questions the pre-eminence of formal EU discourses on values, and the branding of Europe in the global marketplace, by listening to marginalised, unheard or discordant Euro-voices. The issue demonstrates the need for more rigorous theorisations of notions such as 'value,' whether 'shared' or 'cultural,' in the European region, and posits alternative mappings and visions of European belonging and identity. The essays included in this special issue consider Europe as a locus of frictions, consensus, tension, contestation and reconciliation. This locus is capable of co-locating Scotland with the Costa Brava, crossing Swedish views of Russia with their converse, recognising a Europe of borders that continuously unfold, acknowledging the interference of historical memories, and inflecting the Houellebecquian Euro-futurescape with Greco-Australian undertones; to cite a few examples of vibrant transvaluation occurring in the issue.

For better or worse, the future of democracy in Europe has come to depend on the democratization of Europe, i.e. on redesigning the institutions of the European Union so that they are more accountable to the citizens of Europe. While there is not yet much evidence of an awareness of this "democratic deficit" in mass publics, there are abundant Europe-wide signs of increased politicization -most of which point to growing popular resistance to the further expansion of the scope and authority of European integration. Moreover, both monetary unification and impending Eastern enlargement seem destined to exacerbate rather than attenuate tensions over the uneven distribution of benefits. Were this not enough, there is mounting evidence that EU institutions and policies are having a significant impact upon the practice of "domestic democracy" in its member states, and that, at least in some aspects, this has undermined the legitimacy and effectiveness of established national political institutions.

For better or worse, the future of democracy in Europe has come to depend on the democratization of Europe, i.e. on redesigning the institutions of the European Union so that they are more accountable to the citizens of Europe. While there is not yet much evidence of an awareness of this "democratic deficit" in mass publics, there are abundant Europe-wide signs of increased politicization -most of which point to growing popular resistance to the further expansion of the scope and authority of European integration. Moreover, both monetary unification and impending Eastern enlargement seem destined to exacerbate rather than attenuate tensions over the uneven distribution of benefits. Were this not enough, there is mounting evidence that EU institutions and policies are having a significant impact upon the practice of "domestic democracy" in its member states, and that, at least in some aspects, this has undermined the legitimacy and effectiveness of established national political institutions.

General characteristics, political aims and strategies, and government response to right-wing extremism and terrorism; since reunification, chiefly.

Philosophers in Central Europe are highly dependent on the Western European tradition of philosophy, while politicians in the region tend to use arguments that are often foreign to the ones used in Western Europe. The philosophical tradition of Central Europe is dependent on Western European tradition – it would be impossible to speak about any kind of distinct regional philosophical paradigm. The situation with political self‑understanding in the region is very different. The politicians in the region are aware of the various differences between the two cultural and political traditions. Today these differences have become especially clear in various disagreements between politicians from the Visegrád Group and their colleagues in Western Europe. Politicians from Central Europe propose their own understanding of the meaning of Western civilization. This phenomenon can be described as a new political Messianism. The old Messianims of the 19th century today are being replaced by new consciousness of the specific mission of the region. Conservative politicians propose an understanding of the region which is based on cultural differences from Western Europe. Various conceptions about the singular identity of the region that were developed in the ninth decade of the 20th century by Czesław Miłosz, Milan Kundera and György Konràd today are gaining a new political significance.