Munich Security Report 2020: Westlessness

Bunde, Tobias; Carr, Randolf; Eisentraut, Sophie; Erber, Christoph; Hammelehle, Julia; Hartmann, Laura; Kabus, Juliane; Stärk, Franziska; Voje, Julian

doi:10.47342/iaqx5691

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Just as Westlessness, with its associated crisis of common values (Wertegemeinschaft), loss of leadership role (Verlust des westlichen Gestaltungsanspruchs) and general feeling of unease and uncanniness, according to Ischinger (2020), was diagnosed as a return to individual or national responses to crises (cf. Bunde et al, 2020), the concept of Westlessness was contrasted by some politicians and analysts in their accounts of Westfulness. India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar used the latter term in recognition of the end of an era, the high time of Westfulness, due to the perceived waning of the superpower USA, to which others believed to have found their own answers; either "more Europe" (Carr & Erber, 2020, p. 216) or "increased cultural and ideational diversity" (Reus-Smit, 2018, p. 7) and a new form of "international system consisting of several international orders" (Flockhart, 2020, p. 530).…”

Section: Westlessness or Westfulnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Westlessness? Challenges for the EU’s Soft Power Approach

Ludewig

2021

ANZJES

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The West claims to be an economic and political power. However, its moral authority seems increasingly pilloried in many places. Some political scientists even speak of “Westlessness”: populism, nationalism, right-wing extremism, terrorism and democratic fatigue are some of the symptoms. This disunity of many people in Western industrialised nations is nowhere more evident than in relation to the contested topic of immigration. It polarises societies, as it is precisely here that legal convictions clash with ethical and moral ones and subsequently fail in the attempt to create Realpolitik. This article will trace the events that led to the neologism “Westlessness” being coined, before it will contextualise responses from within and without to this diagnosis and use the EU’s responses to the so-called refugee crisis from 2015 until the present as a test case for its future in solidarity and unity.

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Section: Westlessness or Westfulnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Westlessness? Challenges for the EU’s Soft Power Approach

Ludewig

2021

ANZJES

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“…Alarmed western strategists’ latest catchphrase for the disarray in their camp has been ‘Westlessness’. In February 2020, for instance, the Munich security summit reflected on the challenge to a once-dominant liberal-democratic worldview by ‘an illiberal and nationalist camp within the Western world’ (Bunde et al, 2020: 8), depicted as the proponents of a closed rather than open society. This is a pregnant conceptual move as during the Cold War ‘open’ versus ‘closed’ societies were invoked as the axial distinction between the West and the Soviet bloc, a mode of thinking reproduced across the range of culture and embedded in forms of expression ranging from political philosophy to everyday news reporting (Elliott and Schlesinger, 1979).…”

Section: ‘Open’ Versus ‘Closed’ Media Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

After the post-public sphere

Schlesinger

2020

Media, Culture & Society

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The idea of a public sphere has long been central to discussion of political communication. Its present condition is the topic of this essay. Debate about the public sphere has been shaped by the boundary-policing of competing political systems and ideologies. Current discussion reflects the accelerating transition from the mass media era to the ramifying entrenchment of the Internet age. It has also been influenced by the vogue for analysing populism. The present transitional phase, whose outcome remains unclear, is best described as an unstable ‘post-public sphere’. This instability is not unusual as, over time, conceptions of the public sphere’s underpinnings and scope have continually shifted. Latterly, states’ responses to the development of the Internet have given rise to a new shift of focus, a ‘regulatory turn’. This is likely to influence the future shape of the public sphere.

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“…326 In late March, the same disagreement also prevented the G7 countries from issuing a joint statement. 327 In that regard, great-power rivalry has already weakened the multilateral crisis response, hampering the delivery of much-needed assistance to the world's most vulnerable places. But the damage done to international insti-tutions might well last much longer, durably impairing their ability to foster collective solutions.…”

Section: Sophie Eisentrautmentioning

confidence: 99%