Political conflicts in the global era (theoretical approach implementation)

The paper is devoted to the main political conflict issue in the 21 st century using the «dominant demarcation» approach of K. Marx. The author of the article applies this methodological technique to the analysis of modern European societies that are in the process of globalization and were faced with new contradictions. The basic conflict (fundamentalism / cosmopolitan tolerance) were identified by European and American intellectuals (R. Darendorf, E. Giddens, S. Huntington) at the end of the XX century. Today, European researchers (V. Merkel, M. Tsurn) found out a new cleavage, conditionally designated as a contradiction between the «cosmopolitans» and the «communitarian». This confrontation splits modern democracies along several lines: the attitude to borders, to international structures, to free trade rules, to human rights, to climate change. Relations between the population and cosmopolitan elites are also marked as a deep conflict, which is based not only on the economic dimension (losers / beneficiaries of globalization), but also on the cultural and moral dimension. The severity of the conflict is due precisely to the combination, the imposition of several lines of demarcation (economic, political, cultural and moral). The beneficiaries of this situation are predominantly populist right-wing and left-wing parties, demonstrating electoral success in a number of European countries. Tabulated parties, especially the left flank of the political spectrum (socialists, social democrats), are required to seriously rethink their strategies and tactics in order to return voters who are disappointed in their position. Overcoming the conflict without major reform of European politics at the national and subregional level seems problematic