Back

The rise of populism in Spain with our columnist Helmut Sorge

November 22, 2019
Related topics: 
International Relations

Questions:

1/ The recent elections in Spain showed a successful right wing party “Vox’’. Is this a sign of more trouble for Europe?

2/ Do we have to fear a strong rise of populism?

3/ Is a more restrictive immigration policy a solution?

Speakers
Helmut Sorge
Columnist
Helmut Sorge is a columnist at the Policy Center for the New South, where he publishes opinion pieces in the format of international press reviews of current events related to the Middle East and European affairs, and conducts interviews with high level policy makers and PCNS researchers. He is also a lecturer on journalism and the media. For over 40 years, Helmut Sorge served as a writer, former Foreign correspondent, Foreign editor, and Middle East expert for Germany's leading newsmagazine "Der Spiegel" to Washington, London, Paris and Los Angeles. He reported from Vietnam, the Middle East, wrote about safaris, nuclear accidents, visited prisoners on death row in the United States. The German weekly “Gala” summarized in 2011, when his latest book, a collection of biographies ...

RELATED CONTENT

  • Download PDF
    Africa, Latin America, and Global Governance: Contributions to a New Global Order
    Authors
    Marcus Vinicius de Freitas
    January 23, 2026
    The post-1945 international order, an architecture born of war-weariness and colonial twilight, is now a majestic but empty shell. Its foundational promise—a universal system of rules administered impartially—has been hollowed out by decades of selective enforcement, instrumentalized law, and a chasm between the rhetorical ideals of its custodians and their geopolitical practice. This is not a temporary dysfunction, but a systemic failure of legitimacy. From the invasion of Iraq und ...
  • Download PDF
    The Baku To Belem Roadmap To $1.3 Trillion: The New South Should Take The Lead
    Authors
    Hafez Ghanem
    January 21, 2026
    In response to developing countries’ dissatisfaction with the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) of $300 billion, which was decided at the Twenty-Ninth Conference Of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the COP29 and COP30 presidencies promised to develop a roadmap to achieve $1.3 trillion in external climate finance that developing countries need, and to present it at COP30 in Belém, Brazil[1]. The two pre ...
  • Crisis or Opportunity? Multilateralism in a Polycentric World
    January 21, 2026
    The Policy Center for the New South hosted a seminar on January 16, 2026, titled “Crisis or Opportunity? Multilateralism in a Polycentric World.”The discussion addressed the growing strain on global cooperation amid overlapping financial, climate, security, and technological shocks, occ...
  • Download PDF
    Crisis or Opportunity? Pockets of Effective Multilateralism in a Polycentric World
    Authors
    Len Ishmael
    Stephan Klingebiel
    Andy Sumner
    January 9, 2026
    Global cooperation is under stress. It hardly requires detailed analysis: the international system is in a profound crisis, when seen from many Northern vantage points. What if we see the same turbulence but from a different vantage point? For many in the Global South the current period signals risk, but also opportunity. That the same events could spark a sense of crisis in one group but opportunity in another is nothing new. However, the sheer scale, speed, and scope of recen ...
  • The Trump Administration and Venezuela
    Ian O. Lesser & Ahmed Ouhnini
    January 09, 2026
    This episode explores the Trump administration’s confrontational stance toward Venezuela, including sanctions and military posturing and evaluates their effectiveness in undermining Madur ...
  • Download PDF
    L’AES face aux défis de la fragmentation territoriale et de l’instabilité politique
    Authors
    Nezha Alaoui M’hammdi
    Larabi Jaïdi
    January 6, 2026
    La création de l’Alliance des États du Sahel (AES) symbolise une rupture politique et géostratégique majeure, appuyée sur un discours souverainiste et anti-occidental. Deux ans après, Mali, Burkina Faso et Niger peinent à assurer leur intégrité territoriale, à stabiliser leur sécurité intérieure et à bâtir une gouvernance solide. L’intégrité territoriale est un problème commun aux trois États, car dans ces pays, la cohésion de l’État et le contrôle du territoire sont directement men ...
  • I Wanna Wake Up in the City That Never Sleeps
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    January 5, 2026
    The candidate could not have been more controversial—or more celebrated. Born in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, once ruled by Idi Amin, who famously declared himself “Conqueror of the British Empire” and “King of Scotland,” Zohran Kwama Mamdani, 34, is of Indian descent. His father is an academic, a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, his mother, Mira Nair, is an influential filmmaker. Zohran arrived in the USA on a visa at age seven. No doubt the agents of the feared ...