Toward a New Beginning
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The Party of European Socialists, European Greens and European Left Party Respond to the Crisis1
All anti-neo-liberal now? The Party of European Socialists, European Greens and European Left Party respond to the crisis1 Luke March University of Edinburgh [email protected] Paper for PSA 2013 Draft version 1.0. Work very much in progress. Please do not quote without author’s permission. Why has the left failed to benefit from the post-2008 economic crisis? This is a common, but perhaps slightly unfair question. It is difficult to see any one political family as a unique beneficiary, and indeed the right’s apparent earlier ideological hegemony has become unstuck with the ‘austerity medicine’ having consistently failed to revive the European patient. Nevertheless, there is still something remarkable about socio-economic conditions that should be a ‘perfect storm’ for left-wing politics regularly failing to produce anything like a clear boon for the left. The February 2013 Italian elections are just the latest that may mark a ‘no- confidence’ vote in the Centre-Left (McDonnell and Bobba 2013). The social democratic Democratic Party (PD) and its more leftist ally, the post-communist Left Ecology Freedom threw away an apparently unassailable lead to squeak ahead of the right and Beppe Grillo’s Five-Star Movement. This paper aims to contribute to answering this overarching question by comparing the policy and ideological response to the crisis undertaken by the three ‘left’ transnational party federations (TNPs) at European level, the Party of European Socialists (PES), European Green Party (EGP) and European Left Party (EL).2 Comparing the three TNPs is an apposite approach. Although TNPs are ‘timidly rising actors’, relatively weak formations that fall far short of being fully integrated parties, they at the very least aspire to a minimal level of ideological and policy co-ordination (Bardi 2004; cf. -
Remaking Italy? Place Configurations and Italian Electoral Politics Under the ‘Second Republic’
Modern Italy Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2007, pp. 17–38 Remaking Italy? Place Configurations and Italian Electoral Politics under the ‘Second Republic’ John Agnew The Italian Second Republic was meant to have led to a bipolar polity with alternation in national government between conservative and progressive blocs. Such a system it has been claimed would undermine the geographical structure of electoral politics that contributed to party system immobilism in the past. However, in this article I argue that dynamic place configurations are central to how the ‘new’ Italian politics is being constructed. The dominant emphasis on either television or the emergence of ‘politics without territory’ has obscured the importance of this geographical restructuring. New dynamic place configurations are apparent particularly in the South which has emerged as a zone of competition between the main party coalitions and a nationally more fragmented geographical pattern of electoral outcomes. These patterns in turn reflect differential trends in support for party positions on governmental centralization and devolution, geographical patterns of local economic development, and the re-emergence of the North–South divide as a focus for ideological and policy differences between parties and social groups across Italy. Introduction One of the high hopes of the early 1990s in Italy was that following the cleansing of the corruption associated with the party regime of the Cold War period, Italy could become a ‘normal country’ in which bipolar politics of electoral competition between clearly defined coalitions formed before elections, rather than perpetual domination by the political centre, would lead to potential alternation of progressive and conservative forces in national political office and would check the systematic corruption of partitocrazia based on the jockeying for government offices (and associated powers) after elections (Gundle & Parker 1996). -
New Left Collection
http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf3k4002tq No online items Register of the New Left collection Finding aid prepared by Ron Bulatoff; revised and edited by David Jacobs and Emilia Schrier Hoover Institution Archives 434 Galvez Mall Stanford University Stanford, CA, 94305-6003 (650) 723-3563 [email protected] © 1998, 2014 Register of the New Left 69001 1 collection Title: New Left collection Date (inclusive): 1923-2004 Collection Number: 69001 Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Archives Language of Material: English Physical Description: 70 manuscript boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 1 oversize folder, 1 envelope, 1 microfilm, 3 phonorecords(28.0 linear feet) Abstract: The New Left Collection largely relates to radical movements for political and social change in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. It is the largest resource in the archives devoted to this turbulent period in American history. Organized alphabetically by subject file, the collections consists of serial issues and other printed matter, and includes a great deal of ephemera, especially leaflets and flyers. Topics covered in the collection include the movement against the Vietnam War; student radicalism; the civil rights movement and black militancy; revolutionary organizations; the women's liberation movement; and the counter-culture. Access The collection is open for research; materials must be requested at least two business days in advance of intended use. Publication Rights For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives Acquisition Information Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 1969. An increment was added in 2011. Related Collection(s) Radical Right Collection, Hoover Institution Archives Accruals Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. -
DSA's Options and the Socialist International DSA Internationalism
DSA’s Options and the Socialist International DSA Internationalism Committee April 2017 At the last national convention DSA committed itself to holding an organizational discussion on its relationship to the Socialist International leading up to the 2017 convention. The structure of this mandatory discussion was left to DSA’s internationalism committee. The following sheet contains information on the Socialist International, DSA’s involvement with it, the options facing DSA, and arguments in favor of downgrading to observer status and withdrawing completely. A. History of the Socialist International and DSA The Socialist International (SI) has its political and intellectual origins in the nineteenth century socialist movement. Its predecessors were the First International (1864-1876), of which Karl Marx was a leader, and the Second International (1889-1916). In the period of the Second International, the great socialist parties of Europe (particularly the British Labour Party, German Social Democratic Party, and the French Section of the Workers International) formed and became major electoral forces in their countries, advancing ideologies heavily influenced by Marx and political programs calling for the abolition of capitalism and the creation of new systems of worker democracy. The Second International collapsed when nearly all of its member parties, breaking their promise not to go to war against other working people, rallied to their respective governments in the First World War. The Socialist Party of America (SPA)—DSA’s predecessor—was one of the very few member parties to oppose the war. Many of the factions that opposed the war and supported the Bolshevik Revolution came together to form the Communist International in 1919, which over the course of the 1920s became dominated by Moscow and by the 1930s had become a tool of Soviet foreign policy and a purveyor of Stalinist orthodoxy. -
Dimensions and Alignments in European Union Politics: Cognitive Constraints and Partisan Responses
Working Paper Series in European Studies Volume 1, Number 3 Dimensions and Alignments in European Union Politics: Cognitive Constraints and Partisan Responses DR. SIMON HIX DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE Houghton Street London, WC2A 2AE United Kingdom ([email protected]) EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE: GILLES BOUSQUET KEITH COHEN COLLEEN DUNLAVY ANDREAS KAZAMIAS LEON LINDBERG ELAINE MARKS ANNE MINER ROBERT OSTERGREN MARK POLLACK GREGORY SHAFFER MARC SILBERMAN JONATHAN ZEITLIN Copyright © 1998 All rights reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form without permission of the author. European Studies Program, International Institute, University of Wisconsin--Madison Madison, Wisconsin http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/eur/ 1 Dimensions and Alignments in European Union Politics: Cognitive Constraints and Partisan Responses Simon Hix Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom Abstract As the European Union (EU) has evolved, the study agenda has shifted from ‘European integration’ to ‘EU politics’. Missing from this new agenda, however, is an understanding of the ‘cognitive constraints’ on actors, and how actors respond: i.e. the shape of the EU ‘political space’ and the location of social groups and competition between actors within this space. The article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the shape of the EU political space (the interaction between an Integration-Independence and a Left-Right dimension and the location of class and sectoral groups within this map), and tests this framework on the policy positions of the Socialist, Christian Democrat and Liberal party leaders between 1976 and 1994 (using the techniques of the ECPR Party Manifestos Group Project). -
ESS9 Appendix A3 Political Parties Ed
APPENDIX A3 POLITICAL PARTIES, ESS9 - 2018 ed. 3.0 Austria 2 Belgium 4 Bulgaria 7 Croatia 8 Cyprus 10 Czechia 12 Denmark 14 Estonia 15 Finland 17 France 19 Germany 20 Hungary 21 Iceland 23 Ireland 25 Italy 26 Latvia 28 Lithuania 31 Montenegro 34 Netherlands 36 Norway 38 Poland 40 Portugal 44 Serbia 47 Slovakia 52 Slovenia 53 Spain 54 Sweden 57 Switzerland 58 United Kingdom 61 Version Notes, ESS9 Appendix A3 POLITICAL PARTIES ESS9 edition 3.0 (published 10.12.20): Changes from previous edition: Additional countries: Denmark, Iceland. ESS9 edition 2.0 (published 15.06.20): Changes from previous edition: Additional countries: Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden. Austria 1. Political parties Language used in data file: German Year of last election: 2017 Official party names, English 1. Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (SPÖ) - Social Democratic Party of Austria - 26.9 % names/translation, and size in last 2. Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP) - Austrian People's Party - 31.5 % election: 3. Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) - Freedom Party of Austria - 26.0 % 4. Liste Peter Pilz (PILZ) - PILZ - 4.4 % 5. Die Grünen – Die Grüne Alternative (Grüne) - The Greens – The Green Alternative - 3.8 % 6. Kommunistische Partei Österreichs (KPÖ) - Communist Party of Austria - 0.8 % 7. NEOS – Das Neue Österreich und Liberales Forum (NEOS) - NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum - 5.3 % 8. G!LT - Verein zur Förderung der Offenen Demokratie (GILT) - My Vote Counts! - 1.0 % Description of political parties listed 1. The Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, or SPÖ) is a social above democratic/center-left political party that was founded in 1888 as the Social Democratic Worker's Party (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei, or SDAP), when Victor Adler managed to unite the various opposing factions. -
Download the Full Issue (PDF)
JULY/AUGUSTl 996 VOLUME XXV NUMBER 4 Sl . 50~.,o,_o_ - ... , DEMOCRATIC ,., , . ~ 6 AMA11.~ , ·X 523 1 06 1 PUBLISHED BY THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA -."" M 'Y . E D T 0 R A L DSA's Perspective on the 1996 Elections A STATEMENT FROM DSA's NATIONAL PouncAL COMMITTEE he key goal for progre.ssives an~ socialms in_t~e 1996 elec • supporting civil rights by defeating the California Civil T tions is to defeat the Republican right. To do thtS involv~ three Rights Initiative (which would actually take away key rights important usks: for people of color and women); • defeat Bob Dole; • advancing the principle of health care for all by support • retake Congre.ss from the Republicans; and for iniuatives on HMOs; and • enlarge and strengthen the Progressive Caucus in • strengthening the principle of a living wage for all by sup Congress. pon for the initiative rai~ing the minimum wage. To most of us on the le.ft the 1996 Presidential race offers little In addttion, the Progress Caucus has developed a •progressive in the way of hope for positive social and economic change. Polls today Prom1~e to America• which includes eleven agenda items from corporate suggest that President Clinton has a commanding lead. But it's far to early responsibility to a living wage to downsizing the military budget. In Wash to declare victory. And of course a Ointon victory would be a partial one ington, DSA has been working ~-ith the Caucus and the Committee on at best. Econoffilc Insecunty to develop public bearing~ on issues related w this Four years ago, Clinton won the Presidential election by fo agenda. -
1 Revolutionary Communist Party
·1 REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY (RCP) (RU) 02 STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY 03 WHITE PANTHER PARTY 04 UNEMPLOYED WORKERS ORGANIZING COMMITTE (UWOC) 05 BORNSON AND DAVIS DEFENSE COMMITTE 06 BLACK PANTHER PARTY 07 SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY 08 YOUNG SOCIALIST ALLIANCE 09 POSSE COMITATUS 10 AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT 11 FRED HAMPTION FREE CLINIC 12 PORTLAND COMMITTE TO FREE GARY TYLER 13 UNITED MINORITY WORKERS 4 COALITION OF LABOR UNION WOMEN 15 ORGANIZATION OF ARAB STUDENTS 16 UNITED FARM WORKERS (UFW) 17 U.S. LABOR PARTY 18 TRADE UNION ALLIANCE FOR A LABOR PARTY 19 COALITION FOR A FREE CHILE 20 REED PACIFIST ACTION UNION 21 NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN (NOW) 22 CITIZENS POSSE COMITATUS 23 PEOPLE'S BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION 24 EUGENE COALITION 25 NEW WORLD LIBERATION FRONT 26 ARMED FORCES OF PUERTO RICAN LIBERATION (FALN) 1 7 WEATHER UNDERGROUND 28 GEORGE JACKSON BRIGADE 29 EMILIANO ZAPATA UNIT 30 RED GUERILLA FAMILY 31 CONTINENTAL REVOLUTIONARY ARMY 32 BLACK LIBERATION ARMY 33 YOUTH INTERNATIONAL PARTY (YIPPY) 34 COMMUNIST PARTY USA 35 AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE 36 COALITION FOR SAFE POWER 37 IRANIAN STUDENTS ASSOCIATION 38 BLACK JUSTICE COMMITTEE 39 PEOPLE'S PARTY 40 THIRD WORLD STUDENT COALITION 41 LIBERATION SUPPORT MOVEMENT 42 PORTLAND DEFENSE COMMITTEE 43 ALPHA CIRCLE 44 US - CHINA PEOPLE'S FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION 45 WHITE STUDENT ALLIANCE 46 PACIFIC LIFE COMMUNITY 47 STAND TALL 48 PORTLAND COMMITTEE FOR THE LIBERATION OF SOUTHERN AFRICA 49 SYMBIONESE LIBERATION ARMY 50 SEATTLE WORKERS BRIGADE 51 MANTEL CLUB 52 ......., CLERGY AND LAITY CONCERNED 53 COALITION FOR DEMOCRATIC RADICAL MOVEMENT 54 POOR PEOPLE'S NETWORK 55 VENCEREMOS BRIGADE 56 INTERNATIONAL WORKERS PARTY 57 WAR RESISTERS LEAGUE 58 WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE & FREEDOM 59 SERVE THE PEOPLE INC. -
The Quality of Democracy: Improvement Or Subversion
First unedited draft, Comments very welcome Italy and Spain by Rafael López-Pintor & Leonardo Morlino University of Madrid and University of Florence To be presented at the Conference on “The Quality of Democracy: Improvement or Subversion?”, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law & European Forum, Stanford Institute for International Studies, Stanford, October 10-11, 2003. Why Italy and Spain? The democratic quality of every European polity is worthwhile to be analyzed. The fact that most of European democracies are well established is not related, if not indirectly, to the ‘quality’ they are able to achieve. Thus, during last years meaningful assessments of some European democracy have been carried out. For example, one of the most relevant democratic assessment is that of United Kingdom recently carried out by Beetham and Weir (1999). In this perspective the decision of analyzing Italy and Spain has no strong theoretical or empirical reasons except the willingness of choosing not the old, stable democracies, but more recently established, large democratic polity in countries with previous authoritarian experiences in their more or less recent past. That is, our interest was rather directed toward European democracies that may be more problematic with regard to quality because of their political traditions. At the same time, Italy and Spain can be usefully contrasted as the Italian democratic installation and consolidation go back to the 1940’s and 1950’s whereas the Spanish ones are more recent and take place during the second part of 1970’s and early 1980’s. Such a comparison allow us to consider within the ‘ceteris paribus’ clause the size of the country with all related aspects. -
PROOF Contents
PROOF Contents Acknowledgements viii 1 Survival and Renewal: The 1990s 1 2 Regroupment: Establishing a European Movement 29 3 The Party of the European Left 46 4 Diverse Trends: An Overview 66 5 A Successful Model? Die Linke (the Left Party – Germany) 83 6 How Have the Mighty Fallen: Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (Party of Communist Refoundation – Italy) 99 7 Back from the Brink: French Communism (Parti Communiste Français) Re-orientates 116 8 Communism Renewed and Supported: The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (the Czech Republic) 132 9 The Scandinavian Left 147 10 The European Left and the Global Left: 1999–2009 163 Notes 192 Index 204 vii PROOF 1 Survival and Renewal: The 1990s Almost two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, on the occasion of the German federal elections in September 2009, the International Herald Tribune marked the electoral victory of the German right with the headline, ‘Is socialism dying?’1 The German Social Democratic Party or the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) took 23% of the votes – its lowest poll since the Second World War – just months after the European elections registered a poor performance from left- wing candidates across the European Union (EU). As the article went on to observe, ‘Even in the midst of one of the greatest challenges to capitalism in 75 years, involving a breakdown of the financial sys- tem because of “irrational exuberance”, greed and the weakness of regulatory systems, European socialists and their leftist cousins have not found a compelling response, let alone taken advantage of the failures of the right.’ There is no doubt that across Europe the failure of the social demo- cratic parties to present a ‘compelling response’ to the economic crisis has led to a wave of electoral setbacks. -
S688p6 1920.Pdf
-- A Political Guide for the Workers Socialist Party Campaign Book 1920 Prebared by the Department of Labor Research, Rand School of Social Science A. L. Trachtenberg, Director Published by The Socialist Party of the United States 220 South Ashland Boulevard CHICAGO, ILL. 1920 CoPYnIoAT 1940 BY Tm SOCIALIST PARTY OF TAE UNITED STATES CHICAGO, ILL. Printed in the U. S. A. 7 FOREWORD %F This little book is the joint work of a number of con- tributors, which has been compiled under the general editorship of Alexander Trachtenberg, Director of the Department of Labor Resewch of the Rand School of Social Science, and James Oneal, member of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist party. Benjamin Glassberg of the Rand School also rendered valuable assistance in the editorial work. Among the contributors to the volume are Morris Hill- quit, David P. Berenberg, Evans Clark, Roger Baldwin, Solon DeLeon , Lewis Gannett, Benjamin Glassberg, Bertha Hale White, William Morris Feigenbaum, Alex- ander Trachtenberg, James Oneal and Irwin St. John Tucker. The book il the result of a request made by the Na- tional Executive Committee that the Research Depart- ment of the Rand School of Social Science co-operate in the preparation of material for it. The editorial committee believes that the book marks an advance over the bulky campaign books that have been prepared in the past, in that the material is much less in quantity, it is presented in a more popular style, statistics have been reduced to a minimum, while the information will prove of service to party speakers and editors and at the same time serve as a propaganda book among the workers. -
THE POLITICAL THOUGHT of the THIRD WORLD LEFT in POST-WAR AMERICA a Dissertation Submitted
LIBERATION FROM THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY: THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THE THIRD WORLD LEFT IN POST-WAR AMERICA A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History By Benjamin Feldman, M.A. Washington, DC August 6, 2020 Copyright 2020 by Benjamin Feldman All Rights Reserved ii LIBERATION FROM THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY: THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THE THIRD WORLD LEFT IN POST-WAR AMERICA Benjamin Feldman, M.A. Thesis Advisor: Michael Kazin, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This dissertation traces the full intellectual history of the Third World Turn: when theorists and activists in the United States began to look to liberation movements within the colonized and formerly colonized nations of the ‘Third World’ in search of models for political, social, and cultural transformation. I argue that, understood as a critique of the limits of New Deal liberalism rather than just as an offshoot of New Left radicalism, Third Worldism must be placed at the center of the history of the post-war American Left. Rooting the Third World Turn in the work of theorists active in the 1940s, including the economists Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran, the writer Harold Cruse, and the Detroit organizers James and Grace Lee Boggs, my work moves beyond simple binaries of violence vs. non-violence, revolution vs. reform, and utopianism vs. realism, while throwing the political development of groups like the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and the Third World Women’s Alliance into sharper relief.