Ivan Krastev Books

This book is not a study of anti-corruption policies. Instead, it looks at the politics of anti-corruption. Policies are what institutions do. But in analyzing politics, this book seeks to discover why institutions do what they do. The author delves into political motivations at a time when "combating corruption" is the fashion among the academic community. Krastev argues that anti-corruption sentiments are not driven by the actual level of corruption but by general disappointment with liberal reforms that cause rising social inequality. In this collection of essays, the author makes the provocative argument that the current corruption-focused policies are doomed.

In Democracy Disrupted, journalist and political scientist Ivan Krastev proposes a provocative interpretation of the Occupy movements that have surfaced in the United States, Great Britain, and Spain, as well as the more destabilizing forms of unrest in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance? In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West. In this work of political psychology, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of history turned out to be only the beginning of an Age of Imitation. Reckoning with the history of the last thirty years, they show that the most powerful force behind the wave of populist xenophobia that began in Eastern Europe stems from resentment at the post-1989 imperative to become Westernized. Through this prism, the Trump revolution represents an ironic fulfillment of the promise that the nations exiting from communist rule would come to resemble the United States. In a strange twist, Trump has elevated Putin's Russia and Orbán's Hungary into models for the United States.

A impassioned defense of the European Union and a concise analysis of its present challenges and future In this provocative book, renowned public intellectual Ivan Krastev reflects on the future of the European Union—and its potential lack of a future. With far-right nationalist parties on the rise across the continent and the United Kingdom planning for Brexit, the European Union is in disarray and plagued by doubts as never before. Krastev includes chapters devoted to Europe's major problems (especially the political destabilization sparked by the more than 1.3 million migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia), the spread of right-wing populism (taking into account the election of Donald Trump in the United States), and the thorny issues facing member states on the eastern flank of the EU (including the threat posed by Vladimir Putin's Russia). In a new afterword written in the wake of the 2019 EU parliamentary elections, Krastev concludes that although the union is as fragile as ever, its chances of enduring are much better than they were just a few years ago.

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR One of our most scintillating public intellectuals explores the political paradoxes of the pandemic and helps us think our way through it 'We are able to imagine anything because we are being besieged by something that was considered unimaginable...' Beneath the panic and bluster, beneath the confusing speeches and the conflicting advice, the Coronavirus pandemic acted, changing our world in the most profound ways. The tragic human cost and the economic devastation will be assessed and calculated for decades to come. But the pandemic also changed things in ways that are less easily expressed and understood. It has made bare the frayed contradictions of modern life. It has distorted things that seemed simple and settled. It has affirmed plain, uncomfortable truths. In this brilliant, thought-provoking essay, Ivan Krastev, one of our most interesting thinkers today, explores the pandemic's immediate consequences and conceives of its long-term legacy. Will things be different for the communities most harmed, and for those who escaped the worst? Where are we now with the US and China, with the UK and Europe? And how do we think our way through the unthinkable?

Ein Virus war nötig, um die Welt auf den Kopf zu stellen. Wie wird die Welt danach aussehen? Ivan Krastev, einer der wichtigsten Intellektuellen der Gegenwart, gibt Orientierung in Zeiten der Ungewissheit. »Es gibt Momente, in denen sich unsere Gewissheiten auflösen und sich unsere kollektive Vorstellung von dem, was möglich ist, dramatisch ändert. Die Menschen beginnen, die Gegenwart zu ignorieren und stattdessen über die Zukunft nachzudenken – die Zukunft, die sie sich erhoffen, oder die Zukunft, die sie fürchten.«  »Ivan Krastev ist einer der großen europäischen Denker unserer Zeit.« Timothy Snyder »Krastev zu lesen ist ein Genuss, denn in seiner stilistischen Kunst finden die Liebe zur Literatur, die politische Illusionslosigkeit und die Schönheit des Gedankens zusammen.« Elisabeth von Thadden, Die Zeit   »Ivan Krastev ist einer dieser Philosophen, die auch Geschichtenerzähler sind; seine Pointen, Witze, Anekdoten sind Wegweiser, während er von einem Gedanken zum nächsten wandert.« Lothar Gorris, Der Spiegel

22 Essays prominenter Autorinnen und Autoren erklären den Zustand Europas und der Europäischen Union. Sie sezieren die Geschichte des Kontinents und treffen Vorhersagen für die politische und ökonomische Zukunft Europas.

The Fritz Thyssen Foundation continues its tradition with the "Thyssen Lectures," initiated in Germany in 1979 and expanded to various countries, including the Czech Republic, Israel, Russia, and Turkey. The series in Greece, organized over four years under Prof. Vassilios Skouris, former President of the European Court of Justice, focuses on "the EU as a community of European law and values." It raises the question: IS EUROPE FAILING? Three distinct versions of Europe shape its current identity: postwar Europe after 1945, the post-1968 Europe of human rights, and the united Europe that emerged after the Cold War. Each of these is now in question. The postwar Europe is faltering as the memory of conflict fades, leading to a Europe that struggles to defend itself. The post-1968 Europe, which emphasized minority rights, faces challenges in addressing the cultural rights of majorities without compromising democratic principles. Additionally, Eastern Europeans are increasingly reluctant to imitate the West, seeking to create their own models rather than conforming to Western standards. These failures prompt a critical inquiry: do they signify that Europe is irreversibly disintegrating?