Oh Jeremy Corbyn: what GE2017 taught us about the link between music and politics

Does music have an effect on politics? Using the involvment of musicians in the 2017 general election campaign, Patrycja Rozbicka explains why we should start viewing music as a form of engagement with politics, not merely of political expression

Nawigatory wyborcze: Czy możemy mówić o ich użyteczności w badaniach empirycznych?

Voting Advice Applications (VAA) are becoming a more significant part of the political environment in the Western Europe. Their popularity is growing together with the number of users that employ them to receive voting advice in upcoming elections. The aim of the article is to analyse the problems related with creation and maintenance of VAAs and how it reflects on usefulness of data collected through VAA for empirical research. The article focuses on three main difficulties: (1) amount, timing, and quality of self-positioning of parties that influences the coding of the parties in preparation of the applications and consequently reliability of collected data, (2) issues with accessibility of VAAs, how it influences number of users, and how representative are results in comparison to full population of voters, and finally, (3) the increased competition that VAAs are facing and how it asks for quality control and need for cross-VAA data consolidation. To show that those problems are not unique to one country, the analysis elaborates on experiences from the Netherlands and Poland collected during work on the EU Profiler in 2009 and euandi in 2014

Live music and Brexit’s cliffhanger

The question of a fallout from Brexit on the music industry is hunting a number of analysts. The trend in mushrooming publications (see for example: Billboard and Pitchfork portals)2 and media coverage (with the Guardian and Politico.eu taking lead) confirms existing interest in the topic. Most of the analysts draw a distinction between the immediate-short term effect of the “leave” result stemming from the referendum and the long-term consequences of evoking the art. 50 and the UK leaving the European Union (EU). Contrary to the general focus on the music sector and leaving aside the short-term consequences, the below entry focuses on possible scenarios resulting from upcoming Brexit negotiations for a specific sub-sector of economy: the live music industry. We first bring about numbers and indicators underlying the importance of the sub-sector for the UK and Europe’s economies (briefly alluding also to its cultural value). Later, while bringing to the front the discussion of current arrangements for Norway, Switzerland, US and Canada, we suggest two possible scenarios. The conclusions are rather gloom and clearly indicate negative effects for involved stakeholders

Political parties and trade unions in the post-communist Poland:class politics that have never a chance to happen

Trade unions in Poland have not built the stable and long-term relations with political parties as are observed in Western democracies. By analysing the historical and symbolic background of the transformation to a democratic civil society and free market economy, political preferences of working class, trade union membership rates, and public opinion polls, we argue that, in case of Poland, the initial links between political parties and trade unions weakened over time. Polish trade unions never had a chance to become a long-term intermediary between society and political parties, making the Polish case study a double exception from the traditional models

Rethinking refugee support: Responding to the crisis in South Eastern Europe

The migration crisis that began in 2015 has had a major impact on countries in South Eastern Europe. Outlining findings and recommendations from a new project, Amanda Russell Beattie, Gemma Bird, Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik and Patrycja Rozbicka explain that the EU’s response to the crisis has resulted in the outsourcing of refugee settlement and care to states such as Serbia, Greece and Bosnia which were previously described as ‘transit’ countries. This is leading to overcrowding in refugee camps and reception centres, as well as difficulty in ensuring adequate standards of care and accommodation

Live Music Ecologies in the UK – A local perspective in the context of the pandemic

In 2019, the UK’s live music sector was valued at over £1.3 billion. After almost a decade of strong growth the sector helped push the UK music’s overall GVA from £3.5 billion in 2012 to £5.8 billion in 2019, the outbreak of the global pandemic brought it to a near standstill. There are a number of issues to consider in the broader process of recovering from the pandemic shutdown. Live music remains heavily impacted by the developing situation around Brexit, where further reciprocal engagement to facilitate touring will be productive. There is also a need for consideration of the long-term effects of national policies around matters like planning on local, small-scale cultural operators (grassroots venues and others). Measures to tackle Covid-19 also obviously affected venues in Birmingham, as elsewhere. The main argument here focuses on recognising the importance of the live music ecosystem to the broader night-time economy, and the value of communication channels between musical stakeholders, local authorities and regional – as well as national – policymakers. The role of existing music representative bodies, and the emergence of new ones, was an important factor in the necessary work of trying to align top-down approaches, like the disbursement of national funds, and grassroots initiatives. The authors conclude that a healthy live music ecology needs policymakers to take account of factors like planning and development, the spread of venues in different neighbourhoods – as well as within the city as a whole – and the effect of national policy on local provision. This points towards an important role for representative music bodies and emerging regional music boards in establishing impact assessments and serving as a forum for the development of a strategic approach that considers the musical economy in local, regional and national policies

The UK Live Music Industry in a post-2019 era: A Globalised Local Perspective

This report is the second in a series produced through an on-going, collaborative programme of research being undertaken by a team at Aston University, Birmingham City University and Newcastle University. The Birmingham Live Music Project (BLMP) seeks to explore how the live music ecology of Birmingham and beyond is constituted, and how the sector is approaching challenges related to local, national and international change. Specifically, it explores how those challenges are being managed at a local level, and whether any coping strategies identified within the Birmingham live music sector could be applied to other urban areas. This report is based on activities conducted within a project titled ‘The UK Live Music Industry in post 2019 era: A Globalised Local Perspective’ made possible by a grant from the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), which is led by Nesta and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The research took place between February 2020 and April 2021

Europe should remember its own treatment of refugees while protesting against Donald Trump

Many of the protests that took place against Donald Trump during his visit to the UK focused on his policies toward refugees. Amanda Russell Beattie, Gemma Bird and Patrycja Rozbicka argue that while the protesters were right to voice opposition to Trump's policies, the treatment of refugees at Europe's borders is just as worthy of criticism