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Racionero, Luis
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3 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Spain needs more direct democracy
More than 200,000 demonstrators gathered in Spain's cities on Sunday to protest the Pact for the Euro and demand more say. The time for more direct forms of democracy has come, writes the daily La Vanguardia: "The Indignant believe that our democracy is now so entrenched that we can allow ourselves a greater degree of liberty. The closed lists, party dictatorship, the D'Hondt method and all those other corsets which exist to ensure that Spain doesn't relapse are superfluous. The young Spaniards who were born after Franco's death are neither afraid of a putsch from the Right nor share the desire for revenge of the Left. They want true democracy. ... To ensure more democracy the citizens should represent themselves as far as possible. In sum this means that all those eligible to vote should vote on a monthly or weekly basis via computer not on who should represent us but on each of the important issues that affect our daily lives."
» more information (external link, Spanish)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Social movements, » Unrest / Riots, » Spain
Luis Racionero and the hegemony of mass culture
Spanish essayist Luis Racionero revisits the controversy sparked by the US weekly magazine 'Time', which made the death of French culture its cover story in a November 2007 issue. "Hegemony is now American, for the Enlightenment, which could exert weight only in a pre-industrial, non-globalised world, has lost all influence. Today, there is only mass culture, and it comes from the United States. ... High culture has vanished, stifled by the sterile elitism of the avant-garde and, like the bourgeois elites who cultivated it, it has lost all weight in the contemporary world. In mass society, mass culture is logically predominant. ... There is no reason to rejoice, that is just how it is. And Europeans, including the French, cannot improve mass culture and content themselves with being its consumers."
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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Public Culture, » France, » U.S., » Global
Luis Racionero and the idea of nation
The Spanish essayist Luis Racionero attempts to define the term 'nation' and analyses the evolution of this concept across the ages. "Each era has seen its own formulas for territorial amalgamation according to the technology and the balance of power in different historical periods. Hence, in the Middle Ages, there were no states in Spain, France or Germany, but rather counties, duchies or mini-realms. In Italy, they had city-states. ... Each model was best suited to its era, and these were supplanted by those deemed more effective because they allowed societies to get what they wanted. Neither the county nor the nation have disappeared into time; they have remained a part of history, its customs and traditions. But these days they have lost their usefulness and need to be integrated into a new dimension."
» full article (external link, Spanish)
More from the press review on the subject » History, » Spain
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