Crisis, Austerity and Transnational Party Cooperation in Southern Europe

"Bortun’s book is the most comprehensive analysis of cooperation between contemporary radical left parties in Southern Europe. It provides detailed, comparative analysis of why the radical left still struggles to develop transnational cooperation. It will be an essential work for those interested in the radical left, transnational cooperation, political radicalism and European politics." —Dr. Dan Keith, University of York, UK “Bortun provides a forensic examination of the failure of radical left parties in Southern Europe to establish a common front against austerity during the Eurozone crisis. Based on in-depth elite interviews, it makes an important contribution to our understanding of the challenges facing left parties and transnational party cooperation”. —Dr. Paolo Chiocchetti, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany "Bortun’s detailed analysis reveals the difficulties for the left within the EU, particularly the centrality of domestic politics and the incompatible visions concerning European integration. It pays witness to the fact that the EU is still much composed of states – and that the space of manoeuvring has shrunk considerably over the last decade." —Catarina Príncipe, University Institute of Lisbon, and University of Coimbra, Portugal 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 prominent members of this party family at the time (SYRIZA, Podemos, Left Bloc), this book shows how and why the transnational cooperation on the radical left largely failed to deliver in a propitious context. With implications for the study of other party families,the book lays out the key factors that prevented the European radical left from coming together to provide an alternative to the neoliberal status quo in the EU. Vladimir Bortun is a political scientist working on left parties, political elites, and transnational politics. He is currently based at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford, UK.