Despite the large amount of work on Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto, there are some problems that require attention, the most important being the alleged effect of the Council of Trent on this picture, which was withdrawn from the cult from 1583 to 1697: the usual interpretation that it had become unorthodox appears to be without foundation. There are also some questions about its iconology, which raise interesting conjectures about syncretic inputs.

The article starts with the analysis of the origin and development of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) until the 2013 Gezi Uprisings. It tries to show that the AKP first tried to survive in a defensive manner in the so-called ‘Kemalist secular republic’, and thus established strategic relations with non- or anti-Kemalist sections of society. It then chose an offensive strategy to maintain its power against attacks from traditional political and ideological forces in Turkey, such as the army, mainstream political parties and the official ideology of the Republic. However, it is argued that the more power it accumulates the more it loses or leaves its allies and the more it is alienated. As a result, it becomes more authoritarian. The article will be followed by a second part to be published in the next issue of this journal, which deals with the reactions to AKP’s authoritarian and offensive politics and ideology, and the new measures AKP has taken for its survival.

In 2013, in light of the mass atrocity cases in Libya and Syria, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament recommended ‘to reconfirm the EU’s commitment to R2P [Responsibility to Protect] by adopting an interinstitutional “Consensus on R2P”’. Despite such reaffirmation, the Union’s role in implementing R2P remains an open-ended question. To date, the EU’s contribution to R2P has rarely been studied. In our attempt to contribute to the literature, approaching the issue from an ethical perspective, we aim to answer the following questions: what are the existing capacities of the EU in contributing to R2P; and what can the EU do to be a more responsible actor in the future? After identifying the existing capacities of the Union, we analyse what the EU can do to make the international community more responsible in the future given that we have already left behind the first decade of the norm, which was characterized by inconsistent implementation. Finally, we conclude that the Union holds a genuine potential for further development and a consistent implementation of the norm mainly by utilizing its non-military tools.

This study investigates the impact of financial depth and capital market development on the growth of European nations. Financial depth is important if the benefits of financial integration are to be realized. In fact, financial depth is a channel that promotes growth and risk sharing and curbs macroeconomic volatility. Panel data of 17 European nations from 1970 to 2013 were taken and results were obtained through the Pool Mean Group Estimation technique. Our results show that, for European nations, financial depth and stock market development contributed to long-term growth. However, the contribution of financial depth outweighs that of stock market development. Moreover, it was observed that in the case of Hungary and Ireland, capital market development and financial depth contributed to short-term growth. Trade openness was found to be significant for growth in the cases of Austria and Finland while financial depth and trade openness were found to be significant for Germany and Switzerland. In conclusion, in the short-run, financial depth contributed more to growth than stock market development. Therefore, the role of financial depth in enhancing growth can be said to be more persistent than that of stock market development.

This paper examines the relationship between debt-oriented capital structure and economic growth by analysing a panel data of 16 European countries, based on the availability of data. We find that the corporate leverage in financial and non-financial corporations affects economic growth negatively. Furthermore, the results indicate that the leverage in non-financial corporations affects economic growth more than the leverage in financial corporations. This is due to the direct relationship between economic growth and the real sector and the fact that non-financial corporations in OECD countries hold more debt as compared with financial corporations.

The varieties of the national innovation systems among European countries are reflected in the large differences, discrepancies and sometimes unexpected results in the innovation processes and their influence on labor productivity growth. The goal of this paper is to find the differences between the drivers of the innovation systems and their influence on growth of productivity between two groups of countries with different institutional settings in the period of the financial and economic crisis in Europe. The first group consists of a selection of CEE (Central and East European) countries. The second group consists of Germany, Norway, Spain and Portugal. In order to measure the role of innovation on productivity growth we use the CDM (Crépon, Duguet and Mairesse) model of simultaneous equations. The model directly links R&D engagement and intensity to innovation outcomes measured either as process or product innovation, and then estimates the effectiveness of the innovative effort leading to productivity gains. The company-level dataset is drawn from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS10). There is one common result for the two groups, that in general the probability for a typical firm to engage in innovation increases with its size. The other factors influencing the decision process differ. A firm’s productivity increases significantly with innovation output, but only with firms operating in Western Europe. The results for firms in Central and Eastern Europe indicate that these countries’ national innovation systems are vulnerable, and in periods of crises higher level of innovation output leads to lower labor productivity. Therefore, systemic faults in the national innovation systems result in their unsustainability, especially visible in periods of crises, as was the case in 2008–2010. When it comes to Western European countries, the financial and economic crisis did not have negative effects on their innovation systems as innovation activity resulted in higher levels of labor productivity. Regarding the CEE group of countries, the crisis influenced both the innovation process and labor productivity as a whole negatively.

In recent years, the European Union (EU) has intensified efforts to open European research programmes to the world. This paper focuses on the opening of European research to the world by studying the case of the FP7 international cooperation programme. It is based on a mixed-methods approach including analyses of quantitative data, documents and interviews with programme participants, policymakers and other stakeholders involved in 131 EU projects worldwide. The paper identifies features specific to the European international research cooperation scheme and contributes to our understanding of the supranational intervention and its impact on European research integration. Policymakers can use this piece of evidence to formulate enhanced strategies and better design and target activities both within the EU and globally, to achieve stronger, long-lasting research outcomes and effects.

From a certain perspective, literature is always political. Literature in a broad sense has been a source of uprisings and protest at least since Martin Luther nailed his theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 – and probably much further back in history than that. Narratives are the most potent way to articulate both political praise and criticism within a given society. In his political satires, British author George Orwell reviled all kinds of totalitarianism and the idea of a socialist utopia. Swedish writer and journalist Stieg Larsson wrote explicitly dystopian crime stories targeting the Swedish welfare state. German novelist Heinrich Böll turned a critical eye on the development of the tabloid press and the use of state monitoring in German society. In the same tradition, Michel Houellebecq has been seen as a very provocative writer in his tone and in his use of political tools. He has articulated a nearly individual anarchist perspective combined with authoritarian and paternalistic views. In Soumission, Houellebecq uses the European idea of multiculturalism to explode our political frames from within. This article explores the perception of religion in Soumission, assesses the critique Houellebecq directs towards French society and European developments, and examines Houellebecq’s perception of democracy and politics. The following questions are addressed: does Houellebecq’s critique come from a classical ideological perspective? Does he describe any elements of an ideal society – even if only as the reverse of a presented dystopia? What kind of democracy does the text of Soumission support or oppose?

In this paper, the author critically analyses Michel Houellebecq’s novel Soumission (Flammarion, 2017). The analysis uses post-structural theories of discourse, gender, and post-colonialism. The author argues that the novel employs neo-orientalist modes of identification where abjection is a fundamental theme. A neo-orientalist mode of identification refers to how knowledge about Muslims as an abject other is produced through various discursive techniques of differentiation, and how this performative practice is articulated through contingent conceptions of race, religion, and gender. Abjection refers to a symbolic castration, namely the central theme of how Western masculinity and European civilization has been de-masculinized by social democracy, liberalism, globalization, and feminism. Finally, the analysis of the novel is contrasted and compared with Houellebecq’s earlier writings.

In 2015, French writer Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission, which depicts a future France with a Muslim president, was repeatedly cited in political discourse about Islam, French identity, and terrorism. In the year of the novel’s publication, several Islamist terrorist attacks targeted France, and Houellebecq was often named in the debate on multiculturalism, immigration and the French secularist principle of laïcité. The reception of the novel is analysed in this article, focusing on ideological argumentation and political debate. Two opposite camps can be identified in this reception structure. Interestingly, the arguments of these camps are analogous to the arguments of the prosecutor and defence lawyer in the 1857 trial of Gustave Flaubert concerning his novel Madame Bovary. One and a half centuries after that trial, questions about the reader’s moral capacity and the author’s responsibility remain at the heart of the debate. While some liberal critics praise the ambiguities of the novel, trusting the reader’s ethical faculties, other critics condemn the novel and accuse the writer of expressing dubious values. As for the ideological homes of these critics, the liberal group represents left-wing, right-wing, and uncertain ideologies, whereas the gatekeeping group largely consists of left-leaning agents. The division into two reception groups and their respective discursive patterns and practices are analysed using the Bovary trial as a basis for comparison. It is concluded that in the anxious political climate of 2015 when terror, migration, and Islam were attracting considerable attention and when the populist right was on the rise, Houellebecq’s novel functioned as a political vehicle in government-sympathetic opinion making and as a practical tool for critics who positioned themselves as safeguarding generous migration and integration policies.