Zielonka’s dialogue is an intra-liberal one spiced with a hint of internecine betrayal. Part of the reason why support for authoritarian ‘illiberal democrats’ like Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, and Viktor Orbán has grown in the past decade lies at the door of liberalism itself: ‘liberalism’, Zielonka explains to his mentor, ‘has become a shallow ideology of power with fading magnetism for the electorate’. The aim of this hard introspection is to begin the process of outlining a viable liberal alternative to neo-liberalism, which he credits as the root cause of the current crisis. Like communism before it, neo-liberalism was great in theory but didn’t quite work out in practice.

Thus the diagnosis is clear. Europe has moved from the victory of liberalism that ended the Cold War to a disparate counter-revolution that amounts to nothing less than ‘a powerful movement aimed at destroying the narrative and order that dominated the entire continent after 1989’.

The pathologies of the crises outlined by Zielonka consist of succinct statements of the by now familiar reasons for the current predicament. The groundwork for the crisis was laid with the subordination of politics to the market from the 1980s. As a result, parties ceased to be mass organisations structuring politics. Instead they became cadres concerned with managing the economy according to the neo-liberal creed, corroding faith in democracy itself. The de-politicisation of the economy also had a negative effect on perceptions of equality.  The crisis bailouts – and the subsequent permanent austerity they ushered in – created ‘socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor’.

This collapse in trust was not helped by external shocks. Russia’s permanent white-anting of the liberal order created a difficult politics on the eastern borders of the European Union, as well as within it. The migration crisis suggested borders were not inviolable and radicalised public opinion and policy responses. Terrorism operated as a clash of value systems that produced mutual feelings of insecurity. The result was ‘a sweeping disorder generating insecurity’ that counter-revolutionary political entrepreneurs effectively exploited.

Marine Le Pen, President of the National Front; Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary and the Fidesz party; Nigel Farage, former leader of the Farage resigned as leader of the pro-Brexit United Kingdom Independence Party (photos via Marie-Lan Nguyen, Wiki Commons)

This was all exacerbated by Europe’s unique political structure. The European Union was once the jewel in the liberal crown. But Zielonka speaks of the EU in the past tense and suggests that it has become ‘an agent of disintegration at odds with the liberal creed’. Brexit – or, more accurately, the non-metropolitan English and Welsh vote to leave the EU in 2016 – underscored all these dynamics.

Like Claus Offe in Europe Entrapped (2015), Zielonka describes a kind of political stasis: apparent options for exiting the multiple crises are politically implausible because ‘visionless technocrats dominate policy-making while visionary zealots dominate politics’. But Zielonka is not yet ready to give up and move to New Zealand, the dream of many Europeans during the latter stages of the Cold War. Although less combative than the message in Jan-Werner Müller’s What Is Populism? (2017), Zielonka tells us that ‘the liberal creed is worth fighting for, but not in a crude and stubborn manner’.

Zielonka calls for liberals to respect those communities who find comfort in the counter-revolutionary messages, but to cleave to liberal values of equality and freedom with extra conviction. This won’t be comfortable. It entails, for example, what he calls ‘genuine dialogue’ with electorates on the issue of immigration.

The big idea is to reform capitalism. No small amount of ink has been spilled in this regard over the years, sometimes leading to illiberal outcomes. Zielonka admits this will not be easy, but the aim is to restore the balance between corporate efficiency and social justice. There is no alternative to this because ‘there is no chance for equality to be taken seriously without abandoning neo-liberal economics’.

Prof. Jan Zielonka (photo by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung/Flickr)Zielonka has been trying to reformulate Europe for some time, from his Europe as Empire (2006) to Is the EU Doomed? (2014). In Counter-Revolution he calls for a festival of ideas to take place across Europe. This sounds like the French Revolution in 1790 before it all turned bad. We might say that such a festival is already taking place and has not had liberal outcomes. But Zielonka challenges liberals to let go of a defensive posture. He does not quite advocate leaping from the foundering vessel in order to swim for the shore. Rather, he suggests running repairs to the liberal project while throwing some things overboard in order to save the ship from going under. Neo-liberalism would be the first to go.

It is not all doom and gloom. Zielonka’s pessimism of the intellect – another ‘valley of tears’ lies ahead for Europeans – is leavened with optimism of the will if serious introspection leading to change is undertaken by liberals. This book represents an attempt to move beyond the politics of position where liberals disdain those who support the counter-revolution and vice versa. It calls for a ‘polyphonic’ and ‘neo-medieval’ Europe grounded in cities and regions. This would work if identities match territories, which in some cities and regions they do. Yet the nation remains strong in Europe despite – indeed because of – sixty years of European integration, so it cannot be dismissed as a site of democratic and civic engagement.

Zielonka’s prescriptions carry with them the risk of ‘revisionism’: that in order to accommodate critique you absorb too much of the critics’ program. Yet he is surely right to attempt reconciliation. Like all good narratives, the arc takes the reader into the depths of despair only offer the hope of redemption at the end. Yet it is too early for happy endings. Introspection exposes vulnerabilities, and reform is always a risky venture (ask Mikhail Gorbachev). Yet Zielonka believes that if his call to constructive introspection is followed, another ‘wonderful renaissance’ awaits for Europe. Let’s hope he’s right.