The Emergence of Identity Politics Cleavage and its Effect on Social Movements
Seminar was held at the University of Rijeka on May 11, 2018.
“Numerous European societies are currently dealing with great socio-political changes that are strongly affecting their political systems and their democracies in general. I argue that this has been to a great extent caused by the emergence of the new polarization line in their political systems, which I label identity politics cleavage. Accordingly, I, firstly, explain the reasons for its emergence in the Western and Eastern Europe. Secondly, I investigate the emergence of the new protagonists and movements in national and transnational contexts as a direct response to it. I thereby focus on the anti-liberal reaction: an emphasis on the ethnic notion of the citizenship, i.e. on the ethnic and cultural homogeneity, and the “war against gender”, i.e. the advocating of “family values”.”
Filip Milacic has studied political science and history of Eastern Europe at the University of Heidelberg and obtained his PhD at the Humboldt University in Berlin (Supervisor Professor Wolfgang Merkel). He was a fellow of the Friedrich Ebert foundation. He is an author of the book Nationalstaatsbildung, Krieg und Konsolidierung der Demokratie (Nation-state building, war, and consolidation of democracy) (Springer: Wiesbaden). His work was published in many academic journals including Ethnopolitics and Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. He is currently a fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia.
