The construction of “the other” as a problem is one of the major challenges to which we are collectively confronted. A growing number of people in the northern countries of the continent see “the other” in migrants and in the “lazy southerners”, for whom they shouldn’t have to pay. For people in the southern countries of the continent, primarily Greece and Spain, “the other” is the hydra of “institutions” (the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission) imposing “austerity” and leaving citizens to face the realities of poverty. It is thus tempting, out of a democratic impulse, to rebel against the economic doxa – though it is hard to say whether progress or yet another chal- lenge will come out of it.

(Editorial abstract)