Organizing Against Democracy investigates some of the most important challenges modern democracies face, filling a distinctive gap in the literature, both empirically and theoretically. Ellinas examines the attempts of three of the most extreme European far-right parties to establish roots in local societies, and the responses of democratic actors. He offers a theory of local party development to analyze the many factors affecting the evolution of far-right parties at the subnational level. Using extraordinarily rich data, the author examines the 'lives' of local far-right party organizations in Greece, Germany and Slovakia, studying thousands of party activities and interviewing dozens of party leaders and functionaries, and antifascists. He goes on to explore how and why extreme parties succeed in some local settings while, in others, they fail. This book broadens our understanding of right-wing extremism, illuminating the factors limiting its corrosiveness.

Viewing the modern Right as more than a passing fad for state-anxious individuals, this volume treats the current US conservative movement as an important effort to contextualize and rearticulate the truths taken for granted in the American liberal tradition. As a response to the apparent rightward turn in the United States, the contributors argue against the view that the conservative-driven culture wars are nothing more than a symbolic battle of ideas. They warn against pigeon-holing the political Right in terms of single-issue politics, such as the pro-life movement, and instead propose that the New Right, although inconsistent on policy, is ideologically coherent in totality - and a force to be reckoned with.

This book re-examines the philosophical roots of classical liberal political economy and its relationship to the problem of empire and the emancipation of women. It proposes an interpretive model based upon the interconnection between distinct theories of natural rights and the harmony of interests. It takes a fresh look at classical liberalism by exploring economic arguments in thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon and by highlighting the importance of Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith in the development of interest-based liberalism. It also explores lesser-known economic works by thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill in light of their more well-known political writings. With classical liberal assumptions still prominent in contemporary debates about economic justice, it is vital for every democratic citizen to understand the complex origins and development of the ideas that did so much to shape our world today.

This extraordinary collection of quotes drawn from history's timeless conservative thinkers is the perfect gift and resource for students, speech-makers, politicians and anyone else looking for inspiration. Conservatism has a history as deep and rich as the founding of the United States of America. In a time when conservatives find themselves continually attacked by self-righteous liberals, Quotes for Conservatives celebrates conservative ideologies and policies. Quotes for Conservatives includes quotes from the greatest conservative thinkers throughout history, from Andrew Jackson and Thomas Paine to Rush Limbaugh and Tom Wolfe. The book covers all the quintessential conservative topics: the deep state, immigration, taxes, capitalism, political correctness, religion, and much more. Garry Apgar has gathered all the wit, insight and humour of these quotes into one classic collection beautifully designed with line drawings. Quotes include: "America is the only country ever founded on an idea. The only country that is not founded on race or even common history. It's founded on an idea and the idea is liberty." - Charles Krauthammer "A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth." - Ronald Reagan "Politics is downstream from culture." - Andrew Breitbart "To say that animals evolved into man is like saying that Carrara marble evolved into Michelangelo's David." - Tom Wolfe "Political correctness is tyranny with manners." - Charlton Heston "We live in a world of intolerance masked as tolerance." - Rush Limbaugh QUOTES FOR CONSERVATIVES is the perfect gift for any of the proud conservatives in your life.

John Randolph of Roanoke--Roanoke being the name of his home in Charlotte County, Virginia--is unique in American political history. Only twenty-six when first elected to Congress in 1799, he readily became the most forceful figure at the Capitol. An incomparable orator, he was also, in the observation of Dumas Malone, "a merciless castigator of iniquity." For most of his public career Randolph was a leader of the opposition--to both Jeffersonians and Federalists. He was, writes Russell Kirk, "devoted to state rights, the agricultural interest, economy in government, and freedom from foreign entanglements." Above all things Randolph cherished liberty, and he famously declared, "I love liberty; I hate equality. "This fourth edition incorporates the corrections and modest revisions provided by the author shortly before his death in 1994. Among the new material is a transcription of the first-hand account of Randolph's death that relates information long deemed apocryphal. The account is by Dr. Joseph Parrish, who was at Randolph's side when he died in 1833. Russell Kirk (1918-1994) was the author of some thirty books, including "The Conservative Mind, " and was one of the seminal political thinkers of the twentieth century.

The rise of the Tea Party redefined both the Republican Party and how we think about intraparty conflict. What initially appeared to be an anti-Obama protest movement of fiscal conservatives matured into a faction that sought to increase its influence in the Republican Party by any means necessary. Tea Partiers captured the party's organizational machinery and used it to replace established politicians with Tea Party-style Republicans, eventually laying the groundwork for the nomination and election of a candidate like Donald Trump. In How the Tea Party Captured the GOP, Rachel Marie Blum approaches the Tea Party from the angle of party politics, explaining the Tea Party's insurgent strategies as those of a party faction. Blum offers a novel theory of factions as miniature parties within parties, discussing how fringe groups can use factions to increase their political influence in the US two-party system. In this richly researched book, the author uncovers how the electoral losses of 2008 sparked disgruntled Republicans to form the Tea Party faction, and the strategies the Tea Party used to wage a systematic takeover of the Republican Party. This book not only illuminates how the Tea Party achieved its influence, but also provides a framework for identifying other factional insurgencies.

The transformation of Southern politics over the past fifty years has been one of the most significant developments in American political life. The emergence of formidable Republican strength in the previously solid Democratic South has generated a novel and highly competitive national battle for control of Congress. Tracing the slow and difficult rise of Republicans in the South over five decades, Earl and Merle Black tell the remarkable story of political upheaval. The Rise of Southern Republicans provides a compelling account of growing competitiveness in Southern party politics and elections. Through extraordinary research and analysis, the authors track Southern voters' shifting economic, cultural, and religious loyalties, black/white conflicts and interests during and after federal civil rights intervention, and the struggles and adaptations of congressional candidates and officials. A newly competitive South, the authors argue, means a newly competitive and revitalized America. The story of how the South became a two-party region is ultimately the story of two-party politics in America at the end of the twentieth century. Earl and Merle Black have written a bible for anyone who wants to understand regional and national congressional politics over the past half-century. Because the South is now at the epicenter of Republican and Democratic strategies to control Congress, The Rise of Southern Republicans is essential to understanding the dynamics of current American politics.

What is the man who cannot be known apart from his socio-political environment? As Zbigniew Janowski asserts, one does not ask who this man is, for he does not even know himself. This man is suppressed and separated, and not by Fascism or Communism. In present-day America this has been accomplished by democracy. "Only someone shortsighted, or someone who values equality more than freedom, would deny that today's citizens enjoy little or no freedom, particularly freedom of speech, and even less the ability to express openly or publicly the opinions that are not in conformity with what the majority considers acceptable at a given moment. It may sound paradoxical to contemporary ears, but a fight against totalitarianism must also mean a fight against the expansion of democracy." Janowski all at once brazen and out of bounds states what he calls the obvious and unthinkable truth: In the United States, we are already living in a totalitarian reality. The American citizen, the Homo Americanus, is an ideological being who is no longer good or bad, reasonable or irrational, proper or improper except when measured against the objectives of the dominating egalitarian mentality that American democracy has successfully incubated. American democracy has done what other despotic regimes have likewise achieved--namely, taken hold of the individual and forced him to renounce (or forget) his greatness, pursuit of virtue and his orientation toward history and Tradition. Homo Americanus, Janowski argues, has no mind or soul and he cannot tolerate diversity and indeed he now censors himself. Democracy is not benign, and we should fear its principles come by and applied ad hoc. It is deeply troublesome that in the way democracy moves today it gives critics no real insight into any trajectory of reason behind its motion, which is erratic and unmappable. The Homo Americanus is an ideological entity whose thought and even morality are forbidden from universal abstraction. Janowski mounts the offensive against what the American holds most sacred, and he does so in order to save him. After exposing the danger and the damage done, Janowski makes another startling proposal. It is a "diseased collective mind" that is the source of this ideology, the liberal anti-perspective that presses man into the image of the Homo Americanus, and its grip can only be broken through the recovery of instinct. Homo Americanus cannot be free again until he is himself again. That is, until the shadow that belongs only to him is restored, and he is thereby no longer alienated from others. Despite the condemnation Janowski seems to be levying on the citizen of the United States, he betrays a great hope and confidence that the means to shake ourselves awake from the bad dream are nevertheless in hand. Janowski's work is the next title in St. Augustine's Press Dissident American Thought Today Series. It occupies a controversial overlapping terrain between the philosophical descriptions of liberalism as a tradition, psychology and the fundamentally influential critiques of democracy offered by Thucydides, Jefferson, Franklin, Tocqueville, Mill, Burke and more. More anecdotal than analytical, Janowski offers the contemporary proof that the reader is right to be scandalized by democracy and his or her own likeness of the Homo Americanus. Once upon a time it was the despicable Homo Sovieticus fruit of tyranny, but now we fear democratic society too might fall and all its citizens never be found again.

With lively, informative contributions by both scholars and activists, Bucking Conservatism highlights the individuals and groups who challenged Alberta’s conservative status quo in the 60s and 70s. Drawing on archival material, newspaper articles, police reports, and interviews, the contributors examine Alberta’s history through the eyes of Indigenous activists protesting discriminatory legislation and unfulfilled treaty obligations, women and lesbian and gay persons standing up to the heteropatriarchy, student activists arguing for a new democracy, and anti-capitalist environmentalists demanding social change. This book recognizes the lasting influence of Alberta’s noncomformists—those who recognized the need for dissent in a province defined by wealth and right-wing politics—and leaves a set of questions, perhaps sobering ones, for contemporary activists.

Over the past decade, a climate of polarization and hyper-partisanship has swept Saskatchewan into a near-perpetual state of anger and social division. Embers of discontent have been fanned into flames by opportunistic politicians and their industry cronies, who have together sought to rebrand the province into a materialistic, macho alter-ego called the New Saskatchewan. These actions are not without consequences. In Divided, diverse voices describe the impact on their lives and communities when simmering wedge issues burst open on social media and in public spaces. The collection dives deep into the long set-up to this moment, from the colonial past to the four decades of neoliberal economics that have widened social and economic gaps across all sectors. Divided positions Saskatchewan as a fascinating and unexpected case study of the global trends of division and provides testament to the resiliency of a vision of social solidarity against all odds.

A rediscovery of patriotism as a virtue in line with the core values of democracy in an extremist age   “Like you perhaps, I still regard myself as an extremely patriotic person. Which is why I so admired [this book]. . . . It explained my emotion to me, as it might yours to you." —David Brooks, New York Times   “Smith superbly illuminates the distinctiveness of the American idea of patriotism and reminds us of how important patriotism is, and how essential to making America better.�—Leslie Lenkowsky, Wall Street Journal   The concept of patriotism has fallen on hard times. What was once a value that united Americans has become so politicized by both the left and the right that it threatens to rip apart the social fabric. On the right, patriotism has become synonymous with nationalism and an “us versus them� worldview, while on the left it is seen as an impediment to acknowledging important ethnic, religious, or racial identities and a threat to cosmopolitan globalism.   Steven B. Smith reclaims patriotism from these extremist positions and advocates for a patriotism that is broad enough to balance loyalty to country with other loyalties. Describing how it is a matter of both the head and the heart, Smith shows how patriotism can bring the country together around the highest ideals of equality and is a central and ennobling disposition that democratic societies cannot afford to do without.

Who is Margaret Thatcher? Her influence on politics is well documented - not least by Lady Thatcher herself. This book takes a different angle, presenting the personal story of the woman who has been described as the most significant Englishwoman since Elizabeth I. Combining research undertaken by the production company Brook Lapping for the ITV series Maggie with her own analysis, Brenda Maddox traces the life of the grocer's daughter from Grantham who became the most successful Conservative Prime Minister of the 20th century. Unprecedented access to people who have known her throughout her life - some of whom have never spoken before - enables the author to paint a fully rounded portrait of a woman who is still both vilified and adored. snobbery of Oxford University and then of the Conservative Party? Brenda Maddox shows how the Iron Lady created herself, with the strong assistance of both parents and her husband. Through the eyes of her contemporaries, we begin to understand this extraordinary woman, whose shadow still falls across British life.

For most of its history, the American gay movement has been part of the democratic Left. Gay liberation's founders were Communists, and its activist core is still overwhelmingly progressive. But in recent years, a more affluent group of gay men has begun to make its mark. Though they are a minority in the queer community (which includes people of all races, classes and genders), conservatives have become the loudest gay voices in the mainstream media. With their withering contempt for feminism and radical politics, these 'gayocons' are changing the movement's public image. Unless their rise is met by a persuasive critique, they may also alter its heart and soul. Homocons offers such a critique. It describes how the gay Right agenda differs from the one the queer community has long embraced. Never abandoning its analysis of the complex relationship between homosexuals and liberal society, the book examines the conflict between liberationists and assimilationists that has raged since the Stonewall era, and explores how political success tipped the balance and facilitated the rise of the gay Right. Finally this book offers an alternative to gay conservatism grounded in queer humanism, a distinct sensibility that has been a major force in progressive thought for more than a century.

As a term of praise for having won the Civil War and having kept the nation together, the Republicans were dubbed the Grand Old Party or GOP. In their century-and-a-half of history, they elected more presidents than any other party. After losing the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election, eking out a tough win in 2004, and losing in 2008 and particularly in 2012 to an incumbent on whose watch a listless economy couldn't push unemployment much below 8 percent, the attitude of the Republican Party turned sour and negative. GOP might as well had stood for Grumpy Old Party. But all is not lost. In Grumpy Old Party, author Constantinos Scaros identifies 20 tips that will help the party move beyond recent losses, reclaim their respectability, and win. "If the Republican powers-that-be actually read this book and implemented the changes outlined in it, they'd have a lock on the White House for multiple elections and could force the Democrats to come to the negotiating table in good faith." - David Collison, Reform Party National Chairman "Though I do not agree with everything in this book, I think it should be required reading for all Republicans." - Michael Dukakis, Former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic Presidential Nominee. "This book provides a positive approach to solving the challenges we face. That is a priority we share, and I believe the nation needs to elect people who advance the American idea on which our success has been built." - Jimmy Kemp, Executive VP of Group 47 and President of the Jack Kemp Foundation.

A 2022 Best Comedy Book, Vulture A rousing call for liberals and progressives to pay attention to the emergence of right-wing comedy and the political power of humor. "Why do conservatives hate comedy? Why is there no right-wing Jon Stewart?" These sorts of questions launch a million tweets, a thousand op-eds, and more than a few scholarly analyses. That's Not Funny argues that it is both an intellectual and politically strategic mistake to assume that comedy has a liberal bias. Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx take readers--particularly self-described liberals--on a tour of contemporary conservative comedy and the "right-wing comedy complex." In That's Not Funny, "complex" takes on an important double meaning. On the one hand, liberals have developed a social-psychological complex-it feels difficult, even dangerous, to acknowledge that their political opposition can produce comedy. At the same time, the right has been slowly building up a comedy-industrial complex, utilizing the humorous, irony-laden media strategies of liberals such as Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, and John Oliver to garner audiences and supporters. Right-wing comedy has been hiding in plain sight, finding its way into mainstream conservative media through figures ranging from Fox News's Greg Gutfeld to libertarian podcasters like Joe Rogan. That's Not Funny taps interviews with conservative comedians and observations of them in action to guide readers through media history, text, and technique. You will find many of these comedians utterly appalling, some surprisingly funny, and others just plain weird. They are all, however, culturally and politically relevant-the American right is attempting to seize spaces of comedy and irony previously held firmly by the left. You might not like this brand of humor, but you can't ignore it.

Attention to care in modern society has fallen out of view as an ethos of personal responsibility, free markets, and individualism has taken hold. The Liberalism of Care argues that contemporary liberalism is suffering from a crisis of care, manifest in a decaying sense of collective political responsibility for citizens' well-being and for the most vulnerable members of our communities. Political scientist Shawn C. Fraistat argues that we have lost the political language of care, which, prior the nineteenth century, was commonly used to express these dimensions of political life. To recover that language, Fraistat turns to three prominent philosophers-Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and William Godwin-who illuminate the varied ways caring language and caring values have structured core debates in the history of Western political thought about the proper role of government, as well as the rights and responsibilities of citizens. The Liberalism of Care presents a distinctive vision for our liberal politics where political communities and citizens can utilize the ethic and practices of care to face practical challenges.

Combining international political theory and EU studies, Richard Bellamy provides an original account of the democratic legitimacy of international organisations. He proposes a new interpretation of the EU's democratic failings and how they might be addressed. Drawing on the republican theory of freedom as non-domination, Bellamy proposes a way to combine national popular sovereignty with the pursuit of fair and equitable relations of non-domination among states and their citizens. Applying this approach to the EU, Bellamy shows that its democratic failings lie not with the democratic deficit at the EU level but with a democratic disconnect at the member state level. Rather than shifting democratic authority to the European Parliament, this book argues that the EU needs to reconnect with the different 'demoi' of the member states by empowering national parliaments in the EU policy-making process.

Based on archival research and interviews with leading participants in the movement, "Masters of the Universe "traces the ascendancy of neoliberalism from the academy of interwar Europe to supremacy under Reagan and Thatcher and in the decades since. Daniel Stedman Jones argues that there was nothing inevitable about the victory of free-market politics. Far from being the story of the simple triumph of right-wing ideas, the neoliberal breakthrough was contingent on the economic crises of the 1970s and the acceptance of the need for new policies by the political left. This edition includes a new foreword in which the author addresses the relationship between intellectual history and the history of politics and policy.

Fascinating, important, and timely, this is a book for anyone who wants to understand the history behind the Anglo-American love affair with the free market, as well as the origins of the current economic crisis.

Since German reunification in 1990, there has been widespread concern about marginalized young people who, faced with bleak prospects for their future, have embraced increasingly violent forms of racist nationalism that glorify the country's Nazi past. The Management of Hate, Nitzan Shoshan's riveting account of the year and a half he spent with these young right-wing extremists in East Berlin, reveals how they contest contemporary notions of national identity and defy the cliches that others use to represent them. Shoshan situates them within what he calls the governance of affect, a broad body of discourses and practices aimed at orchestrating their attitudes toward cultural difference--from legal codes and penal norms to rehabilitative techniques and pedagogical strategies. Governance has conventionally been viewed as rational administration, while emotions have ordinarily been conceived of as individual states. Shoshan, however, convincingly questions both assumptions. Instead, he offers a fresh view of governance as pregnant with affect and of hate as publicly mediated and politically administered. Shoshan argues that the state's policies push these youths into a right-extremist corner instead of integrating them in ways that could curb their nationalist racism. His point is certain to resonate across European and non-European contexts where, amid robust xenophobic nationalisms, hate becomes precisely the object of public dispute. Powerful and compelling, The Management of Hate provides a rare and disturbing look inside Germany's right-wing extremist world, and shines critical light on a German nationhood haunted by its own historical contradictions.

The benefits of globalization have long been trumpeted by right-wing and centre-left politicians and is enshrined in the neoliberal consensus of western democracies. However, in recent years, conservative rhetoric has turned increasingly anti-globalization. Ray Kiely examines this new trend, in particular the discourse of "winners" and "losers" of globalization that has emerged since the financial crisis, and which has been used by conservative politicians in the United States and the UK to reflect real and imagined threats to domestic economies and national identity. The book examines new US and UK conservative movements (alongside earlier traditions) and the development of conservative ideas, in particular projects for renewal, that have shaped responses to globalization that challenge neoliberal and third way approaches. The nostalgia for a former supposed age of economic and societal harmony, which has characterized this conservative anti-globalization response is given particular attention. The popular mantras of deregulation and economic nationalism that loomed large in both the election of Donald Trump and the UK's Brexit vote are shown to be potent examples of the success of this new conservative (anti-)globalization rhetoric. As well as examining the changing nature of Anglo-American conservatism, the book also offers an insightful account of the wider resurgence of populism.