{"id":916,"date":"2018-11-30T02:07:09","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T01:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/?p=916"},"modified":"2019-04-28T14:44:06","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T12:44:06","slug":"populizam-22-opatija-coffeehouse-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/opatija-coffeehouse-debates\/populizam-22-opatija-coffeehouse-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Populism \u2013 22 Opatija Coffeehouse Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last panel discussion of the project Opatija Coffeehouse Debates was held on November 28th in Caf\u00e9 Continental. In a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere, about forty participants discussed\u00a0populism<\/strong>, a phenomenon that is increasingly represented in the world, but also in Croatia.<\/p>\n

\"47386194_1549924048444070_3886750677652733952_o\"<\/p>\n

Panellists Berto \u0160alaj and Neboj\u0161a Zeli\u010d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The rise of populist parties was clearly illustrated by the first panellist, dr.sc.\u00a0Berto \u0160alaj<\/strong>, Associate Professor with\u00a0the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb<\/strong>\u00a0and author\u00a0The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: Populism in Croatia\u2019<\/strong>. Namely, \u0160alaj made a table that includes the current ranking of parties around which there is a consensus among political scientists that they can be characterized as populist, and showed that populist parties are extremely good in many EU countries, and in many they are also in power or form part of the ruling coalition (such as the Czech Republic, Italy or Greece). It's interesting, Shalaj points out, how\u00a0Populists prefer to coalition with other populists, even when they are at the other end of the political spectrum.<\/strong>\u00a0than with traditional political parties that are closer to them in their worldview (for example, Syriza prefers to coalition with the radical-right populist Independent Greeks party rather than with traditional socialist and social-democratic parties). The cause of this Shalai sees, among other things, deeply in the ideology of populism, which as\u00a0one of the basic assumptions has the thesis of dividing society into idealized \u2018people\u2019 and corrupt \u2018elite\u2019<\/strong>(If it's left-wing populism)\u00a0or \u2018minorities\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0(This is right-wing populism.)\u00a0Traditional parties are seen as the cause of democratic deficits.<\/strong>\u00a0where the interests of the people are neglected or betrayed, while laws and public policies serve the interests of the elites or minority groups. In this context, populism can play a multifaceted role and can be evaluated as good, bad or evil:\u00a0Populism is good because it highlights democratic deficits<\/strong>\u00a0and the big problems that exist in traditional politics,\u00a0It's bad because it often ends up in some form of illiberal democracy.<\/strong>, in which the excessive emphasis on the will of the people forgets the fundamental human and civil rights that stand (or at least should stand) outside the reach of the popular will, and\u00a0It is evil when it is disfigured into neo-fascism and authoritarianism.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"47150377_1546007828835692_493519148496715776_o\"<\/p>\n

Great audience interest and quality discussion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Second panelist, dr.sc.\u00a0Neboj\u0161a Zeli\u010d<\/strong>, assistant professor with\u00a0the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka<\/strong>, warned that the term \u2018populism\u2019 is often used to\u00a0Discrediting Political Opponents<\/strong>\u00a0without directly discussing the content of their program. He pointed out how\u00a0There is a big difference between left-wing populism.<\/strong>, which introduces a vertical distinction between the \u2018evil and networked elite\u2019 and the people,\u00a0the Right Populism<\/strong>, which is based on a horizontal distinction between peoples and (ethnic, religious, sexual, political, racial) minorities, those who are not considered to be part of the people.\u00a0Left-wing populism is thus based on socio-economic issues, while right-wing populism puts cultural-identity issues at the forefront.<\/strong>According to Zeli\u0107,\u00a0The main problem of populism is not anti-elitism, but the advocacy of the idea that the people cannot make mistakes and that there should be no boundaries in the sphere of its decision-making.<\/strong>\u00a0Finally, he foxed on increasingly frequent (harmful) attempts to characterize any anti-migration speech as populism or racism\/neofascism. Of course, among the opponents of migration there are representatives of these, but it is wrong to automatically reject any discussion on these topics because such behavior only leads to an even greater polarization of society. For example, he believes that numerous quality (or at least reasonable) socio-economic public policies proposed by Marine Le Pen and her National Front party are overshadowed because only her anti-immigrant attitudes are discussed in public, without looking at some relevant economic arguments (for example, that openness to immigration contributes to lowering the minimum wage), but the party's policies are quickly dismissed as racist or populist.<\/p>\n

\"43944359_1546008195502322_4810579434144792576_n\"<\/p>\n

Organizers from\u00a0the Association \u201cCultural Front\u201d<\/strong>,\u00a0Amadria Park Hotel Opatija<\/strong>\u00a0the Rijeka\u00a0the Department of Philosophy<\/strong>\u00a0thanked all the participants and visitors, but also\u00a0the City of Opatija<\/strong>\u00a0i\u00a0the Primorje - Gorski Kotar County<\/strong>\u00a0They have been financially supporting the maintenance of the project for years.<\/p>\n

*Report taken from official website of the \u201cCoffeehouse Debates Abbey\u201d project<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last panel discussion of the project Opatija Coffeehouse Debates was held on November 28th in Caf\u00e9 Continental. In a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere, about forty participants discussed populism, a phenomenon that is increasingly represented in the world, but also in Croatia. Panellists Berto \u0160alaj and Neboj\u0161a Zeli\u010d The rise of populist parties was clearly evoked by the first panellist, dr.sc.\u00a0Berto \u0160alaj, Associate Professor [...]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opatija-coffeehouse-debates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":972,"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions\/972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kulturnifront.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}