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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Conservatism & right-of-centre democratic ideologies
William Nylen begins by discussing North Americans' love-hate relationship with politics and politicians, then shows how Brazilians feel the same way (as do many citizens of democracies throughout the world). He argues that this is so because contemporary democracies have increasingly trickled up and away from so-called "average citizens." We now live in a world of "Elitist Democracies" essentially constructed of, by and for moneyed, well-connected and ethically-challenged elites. Fortunately, there are alternatives, and that's where Brazil offers valuable lessons. Experiments in local-level participatory democracy, put into practice in Brazil by the Workers Party show both the promise and the practical limitations of efforts to promote "popular participation" and citizen empowerment.
Edmund Burke ranks among the most accomplished orators ever to debate in the British Parliament. But often his eloquence has been seen to compromise his achievements as a political thinker. In the first full-length account of Burke's rhetoric, Bullard argues that Burke's ideas about civil society, and particularly about the process of political deliberation, are, for better or worse, shaped by the expressiveness of his language. Above all, Burke's eloquence is designed to express ethos or character. This rhetorical imperative is itself informed by Burke's argument that the competency of every political system can be judged by the ethical knowledge that the governors have of both the people that they govern and of themselves. Bullard finds the intellectual roots of Burke's 'rhetoric of character' in early modern moral and aesthetic philosophy, and traces its development through Burke's parliamentary career to its culmination in his masterpiece, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
This book charts and traces state-mandated or state-encouraged "patriotic" histories that have recently emerged in many places around the globe. Such "patriotic" histories can revolve around both affirmative interpretations of the past and celebration of national achievements. They can also entail explicitly denialist stances against acknowledging responsibility for past atrocities, even to the extent of celebrating perpetrators. Whereas in some cases "patriotic" history takes the shape of a coherent doctrine, in others they remain limited to loosely connected narratives. By combining nationalist and narcissist narratives, and by disregarding or distorting historical evidence, "patriotic" history promotes mythified, monumental, and moralistic interpretations of the past that posit partisan and authoritarian essentialisms and exceptionalisms. Whereas the global debates in interdisciplinary memory studies revolve around concepts like cosmopolitan, global, multidirectional, relational, transcultural, and transnational memory, to mention but a few, the actual socio-political uses of history remain strikingly nation-centred and one-dimensional. This volume collects fifteen caste studies of such "nationalizations of history" ranging from China to the Baltic states. They highlight three features of this phenomenon: the ruthlessness of methods applied by many state authorities to impose certain interpretations of the past, the increasing discrepancy between professional and political approaches to collective memory, and the new "post-truth" context. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of international politics, the radical right and global history. It was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research.
Ken Livingstone is a product of the political changes that have already taken place in the Labour Party. As Leader of the Greater London Council he has provided a voice and a vision for tens of thousands of party activists and Labour supporters, in the process implementing a set of measures that indicate the possibilities of a real alternative to Thatcherism. His determined opposition on the Falklands War, subsidised public transport, Ireland, the 1984 miners strike, sexual liberation and racism has made him a far more effective spokesperson for Labour than the shadow luminaries who occupy the front benches in the House of Commons. In these fascinating conversations with Tariq Ali, the Marxist writer and activist debarred from the Labour Party by Kinnock/Hattersley, the two men discuss the future of Labour and socialist politics in Britain. What emerges is a picture of Livingstone as a formidable socialist politician and an adroit tactician, who displays a refreshing ability to discard the stale and battered formulae of traditional Labourism. Socialism is defended with humour, warmth and passion in a discussion that ranges from the merits of proportional representation to the delights of herbaceous borders in London's parks. In a polemical introductory essay, 'Labourism and the Pink Professors', Tariq Ali contests the views of Bernard Crick and Eric Hobsbawm, which have become the 'common sense' of the consensual Establishment in the Labour Party and the liberal media.
Mr. Apraku gives the reader an outsider's analysis of the good and bad elements that make up the U.S. The author, a Ghanian who has spent the last 18 years studying and teaching in the U.S., brings his personal experiences as an emigre to this examination of American capitalism and democracy. He looks at the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the American democratic system. Many non-Westerners, including Africans, do not know enough about the western democracy of the American economic system they are being asked to adopt as a panacea to their economic, political, and social problems. This book should be especially appealing to scholars in international and economic development, developmental economics, political economics, and African studies.
The relationship between the Conservative Party and the organised working class is fundamental to the making of modern British politics. Industrialisation and urbanisation saw the emergence of democracy and class politics, symbolised, by the development of trade unions, which assumed growing political significance. The organised working class, though always a minority, was perceived by Conservatives as a challenge; condemned as threatening property, and as harbingers of socialism. Many trade union members dismissed the Conservatives as the bosses' party, ever-ready to restrict the unions' freedom in the interests of profit. However, at the book's core is a puzzle: why, throughout its history, was the Conservative Party seemingly accommodating towards the organised working class that it ideology, social composition, and the preferences of most Conservatives would seem to permit? And why, in the space of a relatively few years in the 1970s and 1980s, did it abandon this heritage? Taylor argues that throughout its history, the Conservative Party has faced a broad strategic choice with respect to the organised working class: either inclusion or exclusion. The portrayal of the character on the front cover encapsulates the concept of the 'bloody-minded' British worker - an attitude that encapsulates a determinedly 'conservative' attitude to defending rights and influence gained during the twentieth century and which led to the reaction against 'union power' in the 1960s and 70s. -- .
In God at the Grassroots 2016: The Christian Right in American Politics, a distinguished group of political scientists, many of whom have been studying the Christian Right for more than two decades, assess the 2016 elections from the standpoint of religious conservative activism. These elections, more than any that they have analyzed, best tell the story of the resilience of this movement and its enduring importance. The contributors address the evolution of the religious right movement for more than two decades and focus primarily on the movement's role in the 2016 elections. The first section examines the broader national context, with chapters on the Republican nomination campaign, the general election, and the relationship between the religious right and the tea party. The second section comprises state-specific chapters, focusing primarily on the crucial states in the 2016 presidential contest. They conclude with lessons learned from the studies of the religious right in the elections from 1994 through 2016 and address directions for continued research on the subject. Contributions by Joseph Cella, Kimberly H. Conger, Matthew Corrigan, Paul A. Djupe, Christopher P. Gilbert, James L. Guth, Donna R. Hoffman, Ted G. Jelen, Alexander Jensen, Christopher W. Larimer, Mikael Pelz, Sucheta Pyakuryal, Carin Robinson, Mark J. Rozell, Corwin E. Smidt, Oran P. Smith, Kenneth D. Wald, Clyde Wilcox, and Abigail Zofchak
In this book the experiential history of the Soviet-style social transformation projects between 1945 and 1980 is discussed through the example of rural Hungary. The book interprets state socialism as a (modernization) project. Existing socialism was a form of dictatorship in which authorities sought to transform the mentalities of their subjects from the individual level to the global scale. This project depended on socio-economic homogenization; one important method of asserting state power was the transformation of property rights (land redistribution, collectivization). Communist modernization discriminated against the inhabitants of rural areas, who were the primary victims of collectivization and the discriminatory effects of the rules implemented by policymakers. The resulting radical changes in peasant lifestyles would become a source of social pathologies. However, not the authorities but contemporary scholars considered the social costs of these actions. The book aims at Weberian disenchantment and contributes to the deconstruction of the common image of Hungarian socialism, "the happiest barrack". The intended audience includes readers at the graduate level in the fields of history, political science, and anthropology, general readers interested in the history of communism. It is hoped that the research questions inspire new research for exploring convergent and divergent elements in social transformation in former communist countries.
Fascist, authoritarian, anti-Semitic and extremist movements made a powerful and devastating contribution to the 20th century. While the experiences of the 1930s and 1940s served to delegitimise such forces, contemporary Europe and the USA have witnessed the resurgence of extreme right-wing politics. Rapid socio-economic change, the appeal of nationalism, the failures of mainstream political parties and intense campaigning around issues such as immigration, security and unemployment have all fuelled the phenomenon. This book, a sequel to The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA, provides a comprehensive and analysis of the nature and prevalence of extreme right movements in Europe - both West and East - and in the USA at the turn of the millennium. The authors reveal the uneven process of extreme right-wing revival, which has varied from country to country depending on specific political cultures and circumstances, with some movements confined to the margins while others have moved towards the political mainstream. They examine the ideas, policies, personalities, organizations, voters and reasons for the success of extreme right-wing movements in a range of countries, as well as providing a more general examination of the nature and politics of the extreme right.
This volume offers a unique comparative perspective on post-war conservatism, as it traces the rise and mutations of conservative ideas in three countries - Britain, France and the United States - across a 'short' twentieth century (1929-1990) and examines the reconfiguration of conservatism as a transnational phenomenon. This framework allows for an important and distinctive point --the 1980s were less a conservative revolution than a moment when conservatism, understood in Burkean terms, was outflanked by its various satellites and political avatars, namely, populism, neoliberalism, reaction and cultural and gender traditionalism. No long running, unique 'conservative mind' comes out of this book's transnational investigation. The 1980s did not witness the ascendancy of a movement with deep roots in the 18th century reaction to the French Revolution, but rather the decline of conservatism and the rise of movements and rhetoric that had remained marginal to traditional conservatism.
Conservatism has been the most important political doctrine in the United States for nearly four decades. It has dominated the intellectual debate and largely set the policy agenda, even during years of Democratic electoral control. But 21st century conservatism has moved far beyond even the Reagan Revolution of small government, lower taxes and a respect for tradition. The alliance of libertarians, neoconservatives, and the Christian right has launched anxious and angry attacks on the purported homosexual agenda, the "hoax" of climate change, the rule by experts and elites, and the banishment of religion from the public realm. In the foreign policy arena it has tried to remake the world through the cleansing fire of violence. Contemporary American conservatism practices a politics that is disciplined, uncompromising, utopian, and enraged, seeking to "take back our country." This is "anti-establishment conservatism," whose origin can be traced back to the right wing that battled both the reigning post-World War II liberal consensus and the moderate, establishment Republican Party. This book examines the nature of anti-establishment conservatism, traces its development from the 1950s to the Tea Party, and explains its political ascendance.
This book builds a case for how social norms are neither mere conventions nor are they merely anthropological phenomena, which are relativistic. In other words, it talks about how socio-political norms are built out of our natural social behaviour but at the same time also have objective normative validity. The volume puts forth an alternative model called the recognitional model which can help us address some of the socio-political concerns we face in today's world. It addresses the problem with a purely legalistic framework of addressing social injustice is that law, due its universalistic assumptions, regarding human nature, tends to glide over the particular differences that might exist between people. This book discusses how we know that in our daily lives, we value people not only because that person is a legal human being but because that person is our father, mother, our teacher etc. There is a whole network of acts of social respect that we engage in with the other in our social sphere which the legal framework can't quite capture. This volume sheds light on the political consequence of legal reasoning is that it is formalistic in the sense that legal relations can't successfully codify the immediate epistemic context from which social identities emerge. An introspective work, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of linguistics, political philosophy, law and human rights, and social theory.
This book corrects an imbalance in Canadian political literature through offering a conservative account of Canadian political thought, within a framework of global politics. Across 15 chronologically organized chapters, and with a mixture of established and rising scholars, the book offers an investigation of the defining features and characteristics of Canadian conservative political thought, asking what have Canadian conservative political thinkers and practitioners learned from other traditions and, in turn, what have they contribute to our understanding of global politics and political thought? Rather than its culmination Canadian Conservative Political Thought will be the beginning of conservative political thought's recovery, and will spark debates and future research. The book will be a great resource for courses on Canadian politics, history, political philosophy and conservatism, Canadian Studies, and political theory.
This book corrects an imbalance in Canadian political literature through offering a conservative account of Canadian political thought, within a framework of global politics. Across 15 chronologically organized chapters, and with a mixture of established and rising scholars, the book offers an investigation of the defining features and characteristics of Canadian conservative political thought, asking what have Canadian conservative political thinkers and practitioners learned from other traditions and, in turn, what have they contribute to our understanding of global politics and political thought? Rather than its culmination Canadian Conservative Political Thought will be the beginning of conservative political thought's recovery, and will spark debates and future research. The book will be a great resource for courses on Canadian politics, history, political philosophy and conservatism, Canadian Studies, and political theory.
Second revised edition of a study of the Conservative government of 1970-74 which discusses and attacks recent revisionist interpretations which exonerate Heath from culpability for the economic and industrial meltdown of 1972-74. Reveals the economic, political and electoral misjudgements of the Heath government.
Neoliberalism Reloaded: Authoritarian Governmentality and the Rise of the Radical Right analyzes the violent enforcement of neoliberal governmentality and its relationship to the emergence of a new political and cultural Right that combines political authoritarianism, ethnocentric nationalism, racism, misogyny, and antifeminism with neoliberal economic principles. Many critical thinkers have defined this post-2008 crisis phase as a fascist moment of neoliberalism since far-Right movements and parties are not only enhancing their political representation but also setting the agenda of today's politics. However, such a crucial political moment needs more precise analytical tools. In this framework, Neoliberalism Reloaded: Authoritarian Governmentality and the Rise of the Radical Right seeks to understand the emergence of the New Right and punitive neoliberalism not only as a reaction to a crisis of accumulation but also as an outcome of neoliberal reason and the historical neoliberal alliance with conservative and reactionary political forces. Therefore, far from thinking this moment as exceptional, this book seeks the roots of today's punitive neoliberalism in its theoretical framework and in the violence inherent to neoliberal capitalism towards those racialized, colonized, genderized and precarized populations that cannot adjust to the norm of competitiveness. Thus, Neoliberalism Reloaded seeks to contribute to understanding the challenges of our present as a necessary step to imagine alternative futures.
This book offers a systematic and detailed examination of the conservative case for religion by establishment. In doing so, the author demonstrates that the conservative political tradition is rooted in an inescapably religious worldview, and in turn shows what the future of conservatism might be. The author begins the book by analysing the thought of prominent proponents of secular conservatism, chiefly examining the work of Roger Scruton. The author develops a case to show that Scruton's arguments on the privatisation of religion are in tension with his basing of a conservative political settlement on "transcendent bonds". The author then examines alternatives to secular conservatism, especially the chief religious and metaphysical commitments of early conservatives, Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre. Finally, in seeking to establish a foundational argument for religion by establishment within the conservative tradition, and more broadly to unify the diverse commitments and objections of conservatives, the author develops a case that draws on Scruton's personalism, as well as the thought of Martin Buber, Andrew Pinsent, and Robert Spaemann. In the course of developing his foundational argument, the author incorporates findings from experimental psychology and themes from contemporary theology. The result is a convincing argument in favour of establishmentarian conservatism, as well as the role of religious ideas in our self-understanding as individuals and as a political community. Conservatism and Grace will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in political philosophy, philosophy of religion, theology, and the history of conservatism.
This book which will come as a surprise to many educated observers and historians suggests that Jews and Jewish intellectuals have played a considerable role in the development and shaping of modern American conservatism. The focus is on the rise of a group of Jewish intellectuals and activists known as neoconservatives who began to impact on American public policy during the Cold War with the Soviet Union and most recently in the lead up to and invasion of Iraq. It presents a portrait of the life and work of the original and small group of neocons including Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Sidney Hook. This group has grown into a new generation who operate as columnists in conservative think tanks like The Heritage and The American Enterprise Institute, at colleges and universities, and in government in the second Bush Administration including such lightning rod figures as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Elliot Abrams. The book suggests the neo cons have been so significant in reshaping modern American conservatism and public policy that they constitute a Neoconservative Revolution.
This book focuses on the varied support for the populist radical right in the Benelux countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Despite many common characteristics, right-wing populist parties have historically been more successful in the Netherlands and Flanders than in Luxembourg and Wallonia. This book argues that the variation in the success of right-wing populist parties depends to a large extent on the way in which they are perceived and received in a given polity. In the Netherlands and Flanders, mainstream parties and the media have contributed to politicising issues pertaining to immigration and national identity, thereby tilling the field for the populist radical right. In Luxembourg and Wallonia, mainstream parties and the media have resolutely limited the opportunities for right-wing populist challengers to influence the public debate. This volume will be of interest to practitioners as well as students and scholars of party politics, the media, the populist radical right and the Benelux region.
Inside the Black Box of 'White Backlash' researches the contents of the letters of support sent to British politician Enoch Powell in the wake of his so-called 'Rivers of Blood' speech of April 20, 1968. Never has a politician received so much written support in so short a time. This book takes a thematic approach to investigate the way British whites used Powell's speech to vent their frustrations, anger, hostility against (non-white) immigrants and the evolution of British society in the late 1960s. Each chapter unpacks one facet of a 10,000-letter sample, out of the approximately 100,000 letters Powell received: Race, State, War, Empire, America, Class, Gender, Elites, Parties, 'Against' - with this last chapter analysing letters of protest against Powell. This extraordinary archival material provides an altogether unique window into British society in the late 1960s and reads like a (white) anthropology of nativist Britons in times of swift change. The book will be of interest to both students and academics of race, immigration and ethnicity, as well as by the general public. Olivier Esteves appears in this short video about the book here.
This book addresses the central question of how right-wing women navigate the cross-pressures between gender identity and political ideology. The hope has always been that more women in politics would lead to greater inclusion of women's voices and interests in decision-making and policy. Yet this is not always the case; some prominent conservative women such as Margaret Thatcher have rejected the feminist label while others such as Angela Merkel have reluctantly accepted it. Republican women in the U.S. Congress have embraced social and economic policies contrary to what many consider to be women's issues while EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is a staunch supporter of feminist ideas. Other conservative women, such as Marine LePen in France strategically use feminist ideas to justify their conservative stances on immigration. This brings up an interesting yet understudied question: under what circumstances do conservative women become feminist allies and when do they toe the party line? It is this tension between women's political representation and conservatism that this edited volume explores. The chapters in this book, except for Chapter 3, were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Women, Politics & Policy.
The World Social Forum (WSF) was conceived as a platform for exchanging experiences and interlinking effective action. It has brought together people and social movements opposed to neoliberalism, imperialism and the domination of the world by capital. In this book, leading intellectual-activists from four continents take stock of the WSF-experience until the early 2020s and suggest new paths for collaboration between all who build other possible worlds. Since the first meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2001, at least hundreds of thousands of activists have contributed to WSF activities locally, regionally, and globally. In the early years of the WSF, high hopes were often associated with the pink wave in Latin America, the Arab Spring, and similar events elsewhere. Many foresaw the coming of a systemic crisis and some activist-intellectuals even predicted with some accuracy the outbreak of the financial crisis. But not many predicted the strengthening of authoritarian capitalism that followed. The focus of this edited volume is on the multiple practices of struggle, organization, and conceptual innovation expressed in the main WSF slogan since 2001: "Another world is possible." Most chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Globalizations.
A Democracy That Works argues that rather than corporate donations, Republican gerrymandering and media manipulation, the conservative ascendancy reflects the reconstruction of the rules that govern work that has disempowered workers. Using six historical case studies from the emergence of the New Deal, and its later overtaking by the conservative neoliberal agenda, to today's intersectional social justice movements, Stephen Amberg deploys situated institutional analysis to show how real actors created the rules that empowered liberal democracy for 50 years and then how Democrats and Republicans undermined democracy by changing those rules, thereby organizing working-class people out of American politics. He draws on multidisciplinary studies to argue that when employees are organized to participate at work, they are also organized to participate in politics to press for accountable government. In doing so, the book opens up analytical space to understand the unprecedented threat to liberal democracy in the U.S. A Democracy That Works is a fresh account of the crisis of democracy that illuminates how historical choices about the role of workers in the polity shaped America's liberal democracy during the 20th century. It will appeal to scholars of American politics and American political development, labor and social movements, democracy and comparative politics.
Examining responses to migration and settlement in Britain from the Irish Famine up to Brexit, The Discourse of Repatriation looks at how concepts of removal evolved in this period, and the varied protagonists who have articulated these ideas in different contexts. Analysing the relationship between discourse and action, Renshaw explores how ideas and language originating on the peripheries of debate on migration and belonging can permeate the mainstream and transform both discussion and policy. The book sheds light both on how the migrant 'other' has been viewed in Britain, historically and contemporaneously, and more broadly how the relationship between state, press, and populace has developed from the early Victorian period onwards. It identifies key junctures where the concept of the removal of 'othered' groups has crossed over from the rhetorical to the actual, and considers why this was the case. Based on extensive original archival research, the book reassesses modern British history through the lens of the most polarised attitudes to immigration and demographic change. This book will be of use to readers with an interest in migration, diaspora, the development of populism and political extremes, and more broadly the history of modern Britain. |
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