Politico: Europe’s populists can’t be defeated — but they can be contained

Containment is about separating our assessment of the political reality from the outcome we morally desire. Today, the facts speak for themselves: Populists have seized more than a quarter of seats in the European Parliament and run governments representing more than a quarter of the (post-Brexit) EU population.

Support for populists is also far from fleeting. Hungary has had an illiberal government for almost a decade now. In France, Marine Le Pen’s nationalists, who came out ahead of the beleaguered French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberals, have posed a serious threat since the 2002 presidential election. Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which took power in 2015, trounced the opposition this weekend, with over 40 percent of the vote. And, one year into its government, Italy’s League is successfully eating up the support of the relatively more moderate 5Star movement and shows no signs of slowing down. [...]

In practice, we should waste no opportunity to up the cost of illiberal politics, but we need to do so selectively and proportionally. The EU’s decision to open Article 7 proceedings against Poland and Hungary for breaches in the rule of law set a positive example. To be sure, the Commission may not have the votes in the European Council to enforce sanctions against either government. But that does not render these measures meaningless. The proceedings have sent a clear signal to Hungarian and Polish societies and weakened the legitimacy of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the leader of Poland’s ruling party, Jarosław Kaczyński. [...]

There are signs that the paradoxes inherent in right-wing populism are even more startling than those of Soviet communism. You cannot “keep migrants out” and pay for the growing number of pensioners. As a mid-sized nation-state, you cannot both “take back control” and strengthen your position in the global economy. You cannot make government more accountable to “the people” at the same time as you destroy independent institutions. And you cannot build an innovative economy while stifling critical thinking.

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The Atlantic: Modi's New Challenge Is Embracing Urbanization

Five years later, the BJP has secured a new electoral mandate even more impressive than the last, a testament to Modi’s unmatched political prowess. Yet it has done so despite an economic record that can be described only as underwhelming. If Modi hopes to do more than simply stay in power, if he still aspires to bring his new India to life, he’d do well to heed the advice of a small clique of economists who’ve been calling on his government to more fully embrace urbanization. [...]

Modi and his advisers quickly came to understand that a combination of depressed demand in the mature market democracies and robust competition from other low-wage countries had essentially foreclosed the export-driven model of development, as Amy Kazmin and Lionel Barber report in the Financial Times. Instead, Modi reached for a grab bag of reforms and public investment, an approach one of his advisers described as “light many fires at once—to see if any of them would catch.” Modi’s policy mix has indeed succeeded in lighting many fires, though not all of them are burning quite as he might have wished. [...]

But all the latrines in the world won’t make India an economic dynamo. To pull off that feat, Modi must persuade Indians to embrace an urban future. Reuben Abraham and Pritika Hingorani, both of India’s IDFC Institute, a small but enormously influential think tank based in Mumbai, have made a convincing case that at present India’s state governments—which are each empowered to decide what qualifies as urban—systematically underestimate the urban share of their populations. According to the Indian Census, only 31 percent of the country’s population resides in urban areas. If, however, you were to adopt Ghana’s or Lebanon’s definition for what amounts to an urban area, India is almost 50 percent urbanized.

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The Atlantic: What to Make of the European Elections

This narrative points to some important facts. Far-right populists had a disappointing night in a number of big countries, including Germany and Spain. Their advance slowed or went into reverse in a few smaller countries where they once looked as though they could pose a real threat, including Denmark and the Netherlands. And though their overall ranks have swelled, they are in no position to take down the European Union anytime soon. [...]

The results in Italy were especially striking. By engaging in ever more extreme demagoguery against immigrants, Matteo Salvini has transformed the Northern League, a small separatist party fighting for northern independence, into the dominant force in national politics. When he entered government last year, his party was the junior coalition partner to the Five Stars, a populist movement with roots in the political left. Now he has eclipsed his rivals, winning six times as many votes as he did five years ago, and twice as many as he did last year. In the process, he has cemented his position as the likely next prime minister—and radically transformed Italy’s political geography. [...]

It’s tempting to imagine that some of the progressive parties that are now in the ascendant across Europe might be able to stem the right-wing tide. As they have shed the radicalism of their founding period, the Greens have, for example, become ever more popular in Germany. Five years ago, they took 11 percent of the vote, finishing third. This time around, they doubled their share of the vote, comfortably taking second place. For the first time in history, they have beaten Germany’s Social Democrats in a nationwide election. And Germany’s Greens are part of a wider trend: Their sister parties also posted significant gains in France, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, liberal parties, which tend to pursue more pro-market policies but have similar views on many social issues, performed strongly in Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, and parts of Scandinavia. [...]

Traditional parties have disappointed too many people, too many times. The Greens and the liberals speak a different language, directed at a different audience. For now, only Salvini directly addresses the disenchanted voters of the Monte Amiata. Unless that changes, he may be able to count on their support for many years to come.

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Social Europe: The Euro-elections in microcosm: Macron versus Le Pen

Macron himself made of his campaign an existential struggle between his La République en Marche (LREM) party and Marine Le Pen’s nationalist and Eurosceptic Rassemblement National (RN).

Towards the end of the campaign, he raised the stakes by personally getting engaged and emphasising how important this election was for him. In an interview with regional media, Macron said: ‘The transformation project I am leading for the country does not go ahead without a new stage in the European project. The French people elected me for that.’ For him, these European elections could be summed up in one question: ‘Do we want division when facing the United States and China, or do we prefer unity to build our European future?’ [...]

European elections are very often used to protest against parties in government and it is not a surprise when these come in second or third in European polls. Considering the gilets jaunes movement, the weekly protests and the drop in Macron’s ratings in recent months, LREM is probably glad that it maintained this level of support. In fact, the Élysée has already suggested that it does not intend to backtrack on its policies and that it will enter the ‘second act’ of Macron’s term with the same determination.

Third place went to the Greens’ list, with 13.5 per cent. Domestically, the results show a consolidation of the changes to the French political landscape that emerged in 2017. The system now focuses on LREM and RN, rather than the centre-right Republicans and centre-left Socialists—they ended in fourth and sixth place respectively.

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Slate: New Hampshire Legislature Overrides Veto, Abolishes Death Penalty

The New Hampshire Legislature repealed capital punishment on Thursday, becoming the last state in New England to abolish the practice. Twenty other states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have also eliminated the death penalty. In two more states, California and Pennsylvania, the governor has imposed a moratorium on executions. Even as the Supreme Court’s conservative majority makes capital punishment easier to carry out, states seem to be moving away from executions, leaving America’s broken death penalty system to collapse under its own weight. [...]

In May, however, the House overrode Sununu’s veto after a handful of Republicans bucked the governor to vote with Democrats. And on Thursday, the Senate followed suit, with four Republicans (Senators Bob Guida, Harold French, John Reagan, and Ruth Ward) joining Democrats to abolish the practice by a vetoproof two-thirds vote. The bipartisan vote converts the maximum penalty in New Hampshire to life in prison without parole. Sununu issued a statement decrying the override and stating that he was “incredibly disappointed.”

New Hampshire has not executed a prisoner since 1939 and has no death chamber. There is, however, one individual on its death row: Michael Addison, who was convicted of killing a police officer in 2008. The repeal bill does not formally convert Addison’s sentence from death to life imprisonment. But criminal justice advocates expect the state judiciary to convert Addison’s sentence now that the death penalty has been abolished. In 2015, the Connecticut Supreme Court converted remaining death row inmates’ sentences to life imprisonment after the Legislature repealed capital punishment. It seems likely that the New Hampshire Supreme Court will do the same for Addison. (The state Constitution prohibits “cruel or unusual punishments,” and it is difficult to see how a punishment that cannot be applied today could be lawfully carried out against past offenders.)

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