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The year 1848 is considered by historians as a political and economic turning point in France: a major political crisis took place in the form of the February Revolution, accompanied by extensive financial troubles for the French government. The economists of that time actively debated the economic causes and consequences of the crisis. This chapter is devoted to the analysis of these financial controversies in French economic thought around 1848. If the political and philosophical debates of 1848 between the liberals and the socialists are quite well known by historians of economic thought, their financial side has been relatively neglected. According to the authors of this chapter, it is nevertheless of great interest to examine the liberal and socialist ideas of that time. This chapter aims to investigate this little-studied question by raising three main issues: the first one consists of presenting the different diagnoses of the 1848 financial crisis from socialist and liberal viewpoints. Second, it proposes an analysis of the content of theoretical controversies about ways to overcome the financial troubles, particularly regarding the trade-off between taxation and debt. Lastly, it emphasizes the role of this period for the subsequent constitution of a financial orthodoxy in France.

Over the last three quarters of a century, the discourse on economic and social policy has oscillated between two polar opposites: an interventionist approach and a free market-oriented one. The former led to the establishment of the Keynesian welfare state and was dominant in the post-war years, but the latter gained much ground beginning in the 1980s, forcing defenders of the welfare state to retreat into a more defensive position. In the wake of the ‘Great Recession’, however, these two visions are once again sustaining vigorous debates in the global public arena. Economists in their role as policy advisers and public intellectuals, in other words as ‘experts’, have participated actively in such debates; the gains made by (what its critics call) ‘neo-liberalism’ were due, in no small measure, to the growing prestige and influence of Austrian economics. The experts’ discourse tends to be a historical and arguments are often phrased in terms of supposedly ‘cutting edge’ theoretical and empirical advances.¹ Yesterday's theories are judged obsolete and irrelevant. I argue that a more historically informed perspective can actually be more rewarding.

The author reconstructs the anti-Semitic press campaign led by Maffeo Pantaleoni, one of the major Italian economists, between 1915 and 1924. A declared supporter of Nationalism and Fascism, co-editor of the magazine La Vita italiana, the economist moreover promoted the publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1921 plus the publication of lists of Jews who had prominent roles in Italy. Pantaleoni’s work is particularly important from the idealogical point of view because it supports that of the founder of La Vita italiana, Giovanni Preziosi, who was destined to hold, after the death of his ‘master’, a primary role in the Fascist culture and policy of anti-Semitism during the Republic of Salò (1943–1945) which promoted the systematic extermination of Italian Jews.

This essay examines how two Marxist anti-colonial intellectuals from Portuguese India and French India – Aquino de Bragança and V Subbiah – differentially theorized movements for independence from colonial rule. Through the analysis of primary source documents in French, Portuguese, Italian and English, I compare V Subbiah's Dalit, anti-fascist anti-colonial Marxism to Aquino de Bragança's internationalist anti-colonial Marxism. Both theorists' approaches have similarities in (1) theorizing the relationship between fascism and colonialism given that the Portuguese Empire was administered by Salazar's Estado Novo and the French Empire was under Vichy rule, (2) rethinking Marxism to better fit the Global South context and (3) intellectual and political connections to Algeria were critically important for theory and praxis. Despite the distinct geographic and social spaces in which they lived and worked, both produced remarkably similar theories of anti-imperialism.

This chapter aims to address the question of the evolution of economists’s reception of Marxism in France, and thus to complete the more general history of the development of Marxism among French academics. To do so, we follow the relationship to Marx’s work of the economist François Perroux, a priori typical of the reversal reception of Marxist ideas in the 1950s, moving from open hostility to enthusiasm. Indeed, an incisive critic of Marx’s writings before the war, then head of the scientific institution of the Vichy regime, Perroux became in the postwar period a leading figure in the diffusion of Marx’s ideas in France. He founded the ISMEA (Institute of Mathematical and Applied Economic Sciences) which published the journal Études de marxologie, and eventually penned the preface to Marx’s economic works in 1963 for the Pléiade. By following this sinuous path, we show that the way Perroux related to Marx’s work helps us shed light on the various shifts in Perroux’s relationship to the science and politics of his time.

In the 1990s, European social democrats coalesced around a set of principles often referred to as the third way – characterised by prudent economic governance, a slimmer public sector, ‘productive’ welfare services and attraction to inward investment. Third way proponents perceived fairness as supporting opportunity rather than redistributing welfare. On the way to the late 2000s, their sense of direction was lost. The final phase, one might argue, ended with the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Henceforth, the challenge for the Left concerned how to define a social democracy with less revenue and limited scope for expanding public services, while reaching out to the so-called left-behinds through better jobs and a renewed sense of common purpose.

Jeremy Corbyn and Emmanuel Macron represent two distinctly different attempts at forging a new way forward from the impasse. During Corbyn's tenure as a leader (2015–2020), Labour carved out space by moving leftwards on key economic policies while proffering communitarianism as the antidote to globalised capitalism. Across the English Channel, Macron's new party, La République En Marche, sought to generate a new form of politics that had clear similarities with the centrism of third way social democracy, supplemented by an emphasis on social dialogue and enhanced European integration as a strategy for harnessing globalisation.

Corbynism and Macronism represent two distinct attempts at centre-left renewal, both personalised yet evolving on the back of mass movements. This chapter summarises the trajectory of both in terms of ideological content and organisational change and asks what lessons they convey about the future of social democracy in the twenty-first century.

Around 2006, dissensus became predominant in the Hungarian elite concerning internal affairs. Regarding evaluations of the European integration, however, there were no considerable differences between elite groups at that time. The Hungarian political elite supported the integration process and trusted in EU institutions. The present chapter addresses the issue to what extent the elite attitudes regarding European integration prevailed following the economic crisis of 2008. After a brief overview of the Hungarian context, the authors discuss political elites’ (national MPs’) trust in supranational institutions in 2007 and 2014 in the European countries. Our analyses find that the Hungarian political elite became one of the most sceptical elites towards the EU.

Next, the supranational trust of political elite and other (economic, administrative and media) elite groups within Hungary is compared. Results reveal that among Hungarian elite segments there is a hidden tension: political elites are critical towards the EU, while economic and media elites are not.

Finally, turning to the international stage again, the elite–population opinion gap is investigated. It is usually the case that elites are more pro-European than the public. Recently, however, in some respects the Hungarian political elite has shown less trust in EU institutions than the population.

2011 marked an extraordinary year in which in cities all over the world, political protest and crowds in the street took over public space, in broad opposition to repressive state associated with neoliberalism. Since 2011, a “new global cycle of protests” has developed, characterized by public expressions of outrage, fury, and resentment. In Sofia, in early 2013, Bulgarians gathered on the streets, for the first time since 1996–1997. After the first protests in early 2013 diminished, a new and even stronger protest movement developed during the summer of 2013. The aim of this paper is to detect the peculiarities and distinctive traits that are unique to the Bulgarian Summer 2013 protests. It is argued that, although the Bulgarian Summer 2013 movement is part of the “new global cycle of protests,” the Bulgarian protests are characterized by a distinctive struggle for cultural recognition that is partly inspired by Bulgaria’s National Awakening movement that had struggled against the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century.

Purpose – The aim of this chapter is to theorize and describe the main characteristics of the social construction of the policy of electro-amplified popular music (EAPM) in the French context.

Design/methodology/approach – To explain the significance and the institutionalization of EAPM through the conflict and mediation between two modes of legitimation of the rebellion and recognition of identity: deliberative rationality and verbalization of protest, on the one hand, and “musicalization” of revolt and globalization of the rebellious feeling attitude, on the other hand.

Findings – The meaning of the so-called “musicalization of revolt” is defined. This phenomenon emerged, in France, at the end of 1960s, after a long and traditional period of “politization” and rationalization of protest. The main sociological and economic dimensions of this new historical process are designated: a special standardization of the emotional expression and a transcultural and global matrix of rebellion. Then, the public policy of EAPM is examined in depth. The paradox of the French voluntarism (the regulation of EAPM practices) is accentuated. What to do with the liberal origin of these styles and the institutional policy that began in 1982? Why and for what reasons has this public policy been still going on? What are the advantages of the public support from musicians’ as well as local and national authorities’ point of view? What are the topics of EAPM public policy (support for social creation, status of drugs, and ritualization of violence)?

Originality/value of chapter – This academic text offers some key concepts explaining the normalization of the emerging and anarchistic musical cultures.