The beginning of the Anthropocene has been inconclusively debated. Usually, its starting point is linked to the moment in which some measurable human physical impact, such as global carbon dioxide emissions, increased in an unprecedented manner. However, to grasp the fact that mankind became at some point the major change agent of the earth system it is important to identify how and when humans began to perceive their role as that of an active creator, capable of dominating and changing nature. Although no monocausal explanation exists, I argue that the invention of linear perspective in fifteenth-century Renaissance Italy was a major trigger. Linear perspective changed the way humans saw and interpreted the world around them. It fostered an anthropocentric worldview that placed humans in control of their physical environment, allowed the advancement of scientific methods and the ultimate disenchantment of the physical world. Linear perspective marks the beginning of the ‘Anthroposeen’ without which the Anthropocene would not have manifested itself in the accelerated way it has. This holds important lessons. It reminds us that to understand the nature of the Anthropocene, we have to understand the parameters that made us think, see and ultimately act the way we do.

This article reads contemporary Catalan nationalist discourse through the lens of Tom Nairn’s polemical classic The Break-Up of Britain. First published in 1977, that text presents key issues for understanding contemporary Catalonia. The first is the emergence of a national sentiment that is separate from that of anti-colonialism because it is characterized by a higher level of economic development than the place it is seeking to break from, but is the repository of a legitimate claim to self-determination. That is how Nairn sees the Northern Ireland–Éire relationship, and that is a good analogy for Spain–Catalonia. The second is the tension between what he sees as ‘indifferent’, that is to say strictly civic-political nationalism and a more linguistically or culturally-driven nationalism. This is also a key tension in Catalonia, where immigration has transformed the national movement towards an interculturalist ideology and a de facto bilingualism (with Catalan and Spanish) remains a key but strategically unacknowledged element of that movement. The third aspect of Break-Up, and the synthesis of the comparison, is the importance of federalism, which is key for Nairn in seeing a way forward for the constituent countries of the UK and long a crucial, if not the crucial, political element of catalanisme.

The public debate about the consequences of Brexit in Britain follows certain predictable lines of established academic concepts in British constitutional law. This arguably overlooks the important constitutional complications of Brexit, including the position of Scotland in post-Brexit Britain. This article takes the unorthodox approach of focusing on legal and intellectual history rather than British constitutional law, because in this way one obtains a better understanding of the present British constitutional framework in the context of Europe. The discussion is from a continental European viewpoint and through the eyes of a private and commercial lawyer. The completely different understanding of Britain and Europe about the nature of a constitution and the structure of a state becomes more apparent with Britain’s departure from the EU, which may also influence the future national cohesion of the UK itself, particularly the relationship between England and Scotland after Brexit.

In order to silence the resistance, the Soviet Union under Stalin kept the population in permanent fear and uncertainty by recurrent purges of innocent citizens, ‘Old Bolsheviks’ and Red Army commanders, thus terrorizing the entire population. Similar conspiracy narratives are used under Putin. In order to keep his grip on power, after the Beslan massacre, Putin’s administration discourse hints at the operation of an international conspiracy of states using terrorism as an instrument to weaken Russia.

Drawing upon Gidden’s theory of structuration, the works of Castells and Polish intercultural education, the author focuses on the relationship between installing in future teachers what we will call a ‘reflective identity’ and the creation of a new educational and social reality, thus contributing to transforming the whole social structure.

This article attempts to identify and document social mobility barriers for Roma. We have identified two types of social mobility barriers: the cost of exit from the traditional Roma community, and the cost of entry into the mainstream society. Most of the existing policy and academic debate on the social and economic marginalisation of Roma has focused almost entirely on entry barriers. The main contribution of the current paper to the existing literature is to draw attention to exit barriers, which usually are neglected in the public debate and the academic literature. In the current paper we show that understanding both types of social mobility barriers for Roma is crucial for designing effective policy measures.

The uncontrolled exponential growth of the financial sector and its rapid globalization led to an equally rapid increase in challenges to the global financial system. The already undertaken measures aimed at improving financial stability are necessary, yet not sustainable enough. The aim of this article is to provide more analytical arguments to favour another solution – the introduction of the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), and to increase the public and academic awareness of the necessity of such a measure. The ongoing reforms do not solve the key problem – the enormous cost to rescue the financial sector, subsidized to a large extent by the taxpayer, and the absence of a fair contribution from the financial sector. FTT as a tool to discourage excessive speculation without hindering other activities seems to be a socially responsible measure working for financial stability at the same time. To efficiently socialize its impact, however, it is critical to define exact patterns of spending of the funds raised by the states.

The EU plays a high-profile role in the international arena, and yet this role still evades accurate conceptualization. Since the EU is not a state, it is commonly accepted as sui generis; a normative power influencing the world order mostly by means of direct and intermediary persuasion. Despite this position, in practice when championing the global normative agenda, the EU does not always demonstrate high efficiency as a leader. This article studies the EU’s efforts to push through regional and global versions of a financial transaction tax, meant to promote the common good through the positive externalities it generates for the economy. The aim of the article is to arrive at an adequate explanation for the (in)ability of the EU to act as an agent of global governance in this case. The focus of attention is the inner organizational limitations on the EU’s behaviour as a global actor.

Is cohesion policy effective? Does it contribute to the reduction of development disparities and strengthen competitiveness in the European Union? These are the questions that have inspired a growing body of research on cohesion policy evaluation, and which has come to varied and inconclusive results. There has been significant variation with regards to the established (in)effectiveness of cohesion policy among different methodological approaches, which all have serious methodological shortcomings. In order to circumvent these, the authors have not only continued to rely on rigorous econometric methods but also focused on the potential benefits through an indirect estimation approach. They have confirmed that cohesion policy is de facto additional, i.e. that it effectively increases the structural expenditures of the recipient Member States, which, given the evidence on fiscal multiplier, should lead to stronger growth performance.

This article is an attempt to clarify the effects of the German labour market reforms, commonly known as the Hartz reforms. Competing arguments were used to identify the welfare implications for German society and the German economy in order to explore whether or not such labour market reforms might provide another German answer, following fiscal discipline, to the EU’s post-euro-crisis management. This paper confirms that the Hartz reforms effectively reduced German unemployment, but they did not fundamentally solve the problem. Moreover, such effects appeared to propagate an increase in size of the low-paid sector, declining wages and increasing income inequality. The reforms were not welfare-enhancing for individuals because of increased poverty levels in employment and unemployment, which further implied a counter-productive risk for the German economy because of the contraction of domestic consumption, and potential social instability for German society because of rising inequality and deteriorating living standards. Therefore, Hartz-style reforms are neither a desirable model for other EU countries, nor the answer to Europe’s post-euro-crisis management in a time of fiscal austerity and negative interest rates. The real danger to European integration, as argued in this article, is not the challenge from high unemployment, but from Germany’s complacency of a one-size-fits-all thinking and, being the EU’s leading country, its double standards towards and ignorance of the differential nature and contexts of the European unemployment issue compared with the German one. This article warns that the mishandling of labour market reforms could result in the collapse of the already fragile public confidence in European integration.

This essay provides a timely account of China’s recent initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), centring on the ‘16+1’ format. It discusses China’s motivation in this part of Europe in relation to its ‘Go Global’ policy and, more recently and relevantly, the ‘One Road, One Belt’ initiative. It argues that China has made big efforts to strengthen its presence in CEE through state-driven commercialism. While there have been some meaningful outcomes, particularly in building institutional ties, China’s ambition in the CEE region faces some practical and deep-rooted obstacles. Put succinctly, there is still a long way to go before China becomes a mature global power.