Volume 5, No 1

This paper seeks to critically assess the way the EU guarantees the protection of individuals who are discriminated on multiple grounds. As EU law does not recognise that multiple identities can intersect, it is argued that the current anti-discrimination legal framework is not adequate to deal with claims of multiple and intersectional discrimination. Recent legislative developments have, however, raised the issue of multiple discrimination and intersectional disadvantage but they remain guarded and often take a simplistic, rather than an intersectional approach. The EU anti-discrimination legal framework appears to be at a cross-road and choices made by the legislator to promote the concept of multiple discrimination over that of intersectional disadvantage will have profound consequences for the EU anti-discrimination legal framework as a whole and its future developments.

Regional Policy continues to be a central part of the overall framework of the European Union’s (EU) approach to developing a supranational political and economic entity. It accounts for more than one third of the EU’s expenditure and involves complex challenges of redistributing resources from subnational regions in some nations to poorer regions in other nation states. What can nations in other parts of the world that are engaged in pursuit of greater integration learn from the EU’s experience, and to what extent are such understandings relevant to other nations? This paper will review both these questions, with specific attention to the Asian context. It will consider some examples of the interest in subnational regional policy within specific Asian countries, with a view to exploring the potential redistribution from richer to poorer regions in Asia.

Throughout the world, celebrity and populism have become formidable combinations in supporting political leadership. The rise of these phenomena has provoked much debate and has led to the examination of the features, causes and consequences of this kind of politics. Celebrity politics is a reflection of both the influence of celebrities and the power of celebrity images in the media which see politicians becoming celebrities, deliberately or accidentally. The political rise and fall of Nicholas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi and their roles in the performances associated with political leadership furnish two case studies of celebrity and populism in France and Italy respectively. This paper examines these two “presidential- style” leaders in Europe who at first seemedadept in practising aspects of both celebrity and populist politics.

Abstract: This article examines Vaclav Havel’s alleged failure to understand the need for a “realistic” approach to post-communist politics and the criticisms of his insistence on retaining his principles and focus on morality in his conduct as president of Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s. It argues that these criticisms do not stand up against an examination either of how Havel actually behaved in this period or of his writings and statements concerning his actions and beliefs, that they are based on a misunderstanding of what Havel hoped to achieve as president, and make unjustified assumptions concerning the desirability of Western political and economic systems in the early post-communist period. This article seeks to clarify Havel’s perception of his role as president, of the goals of the revolution and what he personally hoped to achieve, and his understanding of the opportunity that had article been offered to Czechoslovakia by the fall of the communist government.