Tag: The Center Can Hold

At a time of political polarization and upheaval in the West, the Atlantic Sentinel believes the center can hold. It are not the fanatics on either side who get things done; it are reasonable people in the middle. Better to muddle through than to veer to extremes.

New Government Won’t Change Dutch Foreign Policy

Nick OttensNick Ottens

The Dutch Labor and liberal parties that announced this week they had reached agreement to form a new government are unlikely to user in significant changes in the Netherlands’ European and foreign policy.

Although Labor is seen as more pro-European, it backed the previous, right-wing government’s European policy while in opposition for close to two years as one of its partners, the nationalist Freedom Party led by Geert Wilders, refused to support the ruling Christian Democrats and liberals in the creation of two European bailout funds for the financial support of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

Before September’s election, which followed Wilders’ withdrawal from the ruling coalition, Labor leader Diederik Samsom vehemently disagreed with Prime Minister Mark Rutte when he insisted that Greece could not be given more time to comply with the terms of its two international bailouts.

Although their coalition agreement, which was published on Monday, does not stipulate a specific policy with regard to Greece, the parties note that the recipients of financial aid should work to improve their economies in the long term. They add, “Structural support from countries that do take their responsibility to countries that don’t is out of the question.” Read more “New Government Won’t Change Dutch Foreign Policy”

Miliband Repudiates New Labour at His Party’s Peril

Nick OttensNick Ottens

Speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester on Tuesday, Britain’s opposition leader Ed Miliband seemed keen to distance himself from the “New Labour” program of his predecessors.

New Labour under Prime Minister Tony Blair in the 1990s signaled a more centrist socialist party that accepted many of the market reforms that were implemented in the previous decade by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government and broadened Labour’s electoral appeal to middle-class voters. It was ideologically aligned to President Bill Clinton’s “Third Way” in the United States which preserved the fiscal and trade policies of the previous Republican administrations.

According to Miliband, New Labour was “was too silent about the responsibility of those at the top,” however. He argued that the wealthy “have the biggest responsibility to show responsibility to the rest of our country,” in other words: should pay higher taxes. Read more “Miliband Repudiates New Labour at His Party’s Peril”

The End of Ideology in South America

Nick OttensNick Ottens

A new generation of conservative leaders appears to be stepping up in Latin America. In Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos just took over as president from Álvaro Uribe who had been the continent’s most right-wing leader in a decade. Chile recently elected billionaire Sebastián Piñera president while in Brazil, the opposition’s candidate, José Serra, stands a good chance of claiming victory this fall. It may be tempting to believe that South America is turning conservative. Not so, says Michael Shifter.

Writing in Foreign Policy, Shifter, who is the president of the Inter American Dialogue think tank, argues that South America isn’t making a turn for the right. Rather, he believes, it has shifted to the center. Read more “The End of Ideology in South America”