Vladimir Bortun

University of Oxford | OX · Department of Social Policy and Intervention

The Eurozone crisis and its austerity-centred management opened up a fertile ground for the so-called ‘radical left parties’ (RLPs) and their anti-austerity agenda. Moreover, it provided a unique opportunity for this party family to enhance its rather underdeveloped transnational cooperation. Sharing several objective and subjective features, SYRIZ...

While much of the intense media coverage of the UK government’s freebies scandal might be attributable to overzealous scrutiny by a predominantly right-of-centre printed press, there is at least one important issue at the heart of all this. It should be acknowledged that the gifts are in line with existing regulations – and also arguably less contr...

In recent years, researchers working on the nexus between migration and politics in countries of origin have started to pay more attention to the local level, but important empirical and theoretical gaps remain. By drawing upon semi-structured interviews, field observation and documentary research, this paper presents the exploratory case study of...

Like most far-right parties, Reform claims to be anti-establishment, but it's led by a millionaire ex-banker, bankrolled by aristocrats, and pushes the agenda of landlords and fossil fuel giants. They’re merely another elite faction vying for control.

Most people following British politics would probably know by now that Labour leader Keir Starmer’s father was a toolmaker. He has talked many times about his working-class background and the way it informs his politics. Starmer is not alone. Politicians from the other side of the political spectrum have also ramped up the rhetoric around their “bl...

Most work in political science on class and political ideology is focussed on politicians’ class destination rather than class origins. Yet that is inconsistent with evidence in the case of the United Kingdom that the conditions of someone’s family upbringing do influence their politics. This article revisits the conceptualisation of class backgrou...

Dan Evans’s "A Nation of Shopkeepers" explores the growth of the “petty bourgeoisie” in the UK following Thatcherism, as the rise of home ownership, small landlordism and changes to the world of work instilled individualist tendencies among this section of the middle class. According to Vladimir Bortun, the book is an intellectual tour de force, th...

After 35 years of capitalism, the chronically dire socio-economic conditions in Romania have led to the emergence of a leftist consciousness among the popular classes – not to a new mass left party, though. In this super-electoral year, it is business as usual. The various parties of capital compete over the votes of an increasingly disillusioned e...

Researchers have made significant advances over the past decade in making sense of right-wing populism. However, as this party family continues to win elections, scholars need to pay more attention to the class forces and material interests it represents.

Through years of austerity, Europe’s radical-left parties spoke of a common challenge to EU neoliberalism. But without any real shared strategy, parties focused on domestic politics are rarely able to build collaboration across borders.

With roughly six months to go, the radical right looks set to make significant gains in the 2024 European elections. The biggest share of votes is still likely to go to parties of the centre-right, but many of these have lately veered rightward, too. Meanwhile, the European parliament’s radical left group is failing to make meaningful headway among...

This chapter builds on documentary research and semi-structured elite interviews to map and unpack the formal, party-based dimensions of the transnational networking and cooperation among SYRIZA, Bloco and Podemos. That designates the interaction taking place via formalised structures or frameworks, such as party-to-party channels, the EP group (Th...

This chapter builds on documentary research and semi-structured elite interviews to explore and unpack the informal transnational networking and cooperation among SYRIZA, Bloco and Podemos. As defined in the introduction, “informal” broadly refers to the networking and cooperation that “is not codified but, rather, is shaped by habits among and lin...

This chapter provides, by building on existing literature, an overview of the impact of the Eurozone crisis in Greece, Portugal and Spain. The first section gives a brief and critical account of the Eurozone crisis and its austerity-centred management, understood by the European radical left as both a manifestation and reinforcement of the neoliber...

The previous two chapters mapped the formal and informal TPC among SYRIZA, Bloco and Podemos and its evolution during the decade of crisis. That discussion has already revealed some of the key features of these processes. This chapter aims to identify and unpack them more thoroughly. Thus, the first section discusses the incentives for the TPC amon...

This chapter undertakes a critical review of the existing literature to outline the evolution of transnational cooperation among RLPs in the context of European integration. It does so by tracing the main organisational developments of that process and its key challenges over the decades. Thus, the chapter’s five sections deal in turn with the Comm...

In "Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics", Matthew Goodwin claims that recent upheavals in British society (like Brexit) have emerged in response to the rise of a liberalised, globalised ruling class, or “new elite.” Goodwin’s emphasis on “culture wars” over economic issues fails to convince.

Some of the most successful radical-left parties of the past decade are not really radical. These parties do not display the anti-capitalism that defines the radical left, but rather a socioeconomic agenda akin to post-WWII social democracy. Labelling this neo-reformist left 'radical' is deeply problematic, conceptually and politically.

Over the past decade we have witnessed the rise of radical left parties (RLPs) in several European countries. According to the prevalent definition in the literature, the key feature of this party family is the goal to overcome capitalism. However, based on content analysis of party and governmental documents, this paper argues that the two most pr...

This paper discusses the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on research ethics in social sciences by focusing on the concept of vulnerability. We unpack the current conceptualisations of vulnerability and their limitations and argue for the need to reconceptualise vulnerability as multidimensional, consisting of both universal and contextual d...

Challenging the over-emphasis on the voting process, Marlène Benquet (University of Paris Dauphine) and Théo Bourgeron (University of Edinburgh) invite us to look more closely at the role played by the economic interests of the upper class. They make the case that the Leave-Remain cleavage was in fact the manifestation of a deeper division within t...

The most internationalist of all party families, the radical left has paradoxically always lagged behind in its cooperation at the EU level. The previous decade, however, the transnational character of the Eurozone crisis and its austerity-centred management provided a strong incentive to remedy that. By focusing on the relations between three prom...

For years now, party-based Euroscepticism has been broadly conceived – various taxonomies notwithstanding – as either in favour of reforming the EU ‘soft Euroscepticism’ or leaving it altogether ‘hard Euroscepticism’. It has been particularly so in the case of Euroscepticism on the left. However, in a recent article for the Journal of Common Market...

Despite attempts in the broader literature to go beyond a binary classification of party-based Euroscepticism, Eurosceptic radical left parties are still generally divided into those advocating reform of the EU and those calling for an exit from the EU. The most notable exception is the classification proposed by Keith (2017), who distinguishes bet...

The pedagogical benefits of active learning environments such as simulations within university teaching have been widely acknowledged. This paper starts from the premise that simulations can derive benefits when used as an effective university outreach tool to widen participation in and raise aspirations towards entering higher education. We argue...

As the prospect of a fresh Eurozone crisis rears its head, the question of European left solidarity and resistance is once again coming to the fore. Reflecting on the experience of the intervening decade, Vladimir Bortun puts forward the case for adopting a transitional socialist strategy and programme towards the EU. The new economic crisis facing...

The modest performance of radical left parties in the European elections re ected their limited transnational cooperation 0 comments | 1 shares Estimated reading time: 5 minutes The GUE/NGL group saw its share of seats in the European Parliament decline at the 2019 European elections. Vladimir Bortun argues that a general lack of transnational coop...

The pedagogical effectiveness of active learning methods within university teaching, such as simulations, has been widely acknowledged. There is some evidence that simulations are effective tools at engaging students in the classroom. Yet, empirical evidence of actual impacts on learning are not as well-documented as they could be. Importantly howe...

Critical book review for the Journal of Common Market Studies

Inspired by the growing debate on critical approaches to European Studies, Vladimir Bortun adds his own perspective. He argues for class analysis which not only asks how to fix the EU’s specific problems but which takes a more holistic approach. Is the EU in its current form even worth fixing or do we need to think about a different kind of transna...

This book aims to define and classify current ‘radical left’ parties in the European Union, as well as to outline the relations within and between the subfamilies in which the book divides them.

The purpose of this essay is to deconstruct, from an openly Marxist and politically engaged perspective, the false progressive image that many on the left ascribe to the European Union. I argue that the EU has been from the very beginning and continued to be a project of the capitalist elites in Western Europe, as reflected by its the entire instit...