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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Conservatism & right-of-centre democratic ideologies
The views generally held about the rise of the factory system in Britain derive from highly distorted accounts of the social consequences of that system--so say the distinguished economic historians whose papers make up this book. The authors offer documentary evidence to support their conclusion that under capitalism the workers, despite long hours and other hardships of factory life, were better off financially, had more opportunities, and led a better life than had been the case before the Industrial Revolution.
How two seemingly separate forces—white power and neoliberalism—intersect and polarize the United States today.  White Power and American Neoliberal Culture speaks to the urgency of the present moment by uncovering and examining the ideologies that led us here. Working through sources such as white terrorist manifestos, white power utopian fiction, neoliberal think tank reports, and neoconservative policy statements, Patricia Ventura and Edward K. Chan analyze the conjunction of current forms of white supremacy and racial capitalism.  Short and accessible, this timely book argues that white extremist worldviews—and the violence they provoke—have converged with a radical economic and social agenda to shape daily life in the United States, especially by enshrining the male-dominated white family as the ideal of national identity. Through insightful observation and critical dissection, Ventura and Chan paint a striking portrait of how these forces enable each other, perpetuating social injustice and inequity.
The first book to unearth the Christchurch massacre's fascist roots and examine what it represents and threatens. The massacre of more than fifty worshippers at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, shocked the world. The murders were not random. They expressed a particular ideology, one that the alleged perpetrator described as 'fascism'. But what does fascism mean today - and what kind of threat does it pose? Jeff Sparrow traces the history of the far right, showing how fascists have adapted to the new politics of the twenty-first century. Burgeoning in dark places online, contemporary fascism exults in violence and picks its targets strategically. Today, it is Muslims; tomorrow, it will be Jews or gays or Asians. With imitative massacres already occurring around the world, Christchurch must be a wake-up call. This book makes a compelling, urgent case for a new response to an old menace.
In spite of the fact that Conservative, Christian democratic and Liberal parties continue to play a crucial role in the democratic politics and governance of every Western European country, they are rarely paid the attention they deserve. This cutting-edge comparative collection, combining qualitative case studies with large-N quantitative analysis, reveals a mainstream right squeezed by the need to adapt to both 'the silent revolution' that has seen the spread of postmaterialist, liberal and cosmopolitan values and the backlash against those values - the 'silent counter-revolution' that has brought with it the rise of a myriad far right parties offering populist and nativist answers to many of the continent's thorniest political problems. What explains why some mainstream right parties seem to be coping with that challenge better than others? And does the temptation to ride the populist wave rather than resist it ultimately pose a danger to liberal democracy?
NATIONAL BESTSELLER now in paperback, updated with a new afterword "This is the definitive account of what has gone wrong in our two-party system, and how our democracy has to adapt to survive it. I can't say it in strong enough terms: Read. This. Book." -RACHEL MADDOW The award-winning producer of The Rachel Maddow Show exposes the Republican Party as a gang of impostors, meticulously documenting how they have abandoned their duty to govern and are gravely endangering America For decades, American voters innocently assumed the two major political parties were equally mature and responsible governing entities, ideological differences aside. That belief is due for an overhaul: in recent years, the Republican Party has undergone an astonishing metamorphosis, one so baffling and complete that few have fully reckoned with the reality and its consequences. Republicans, simply put, have quit governing. As MSNBC's Steve Benen charts in his groundbreaking new book, the contemporary GOP has become a "post-policy party." Republicans are effectively impostors, presenting themselves as officials who are ready to take seriously the substance of problem solving, but whose sole focus is the pursuit and maintenance of power. Astonishingly, they are winning-at the cost of pushing the political system to the breaking point. Despite having billed itself as the "party of ideas," the Republican Party has walked away from the hard but necessary work of policymaking. It is disdainful of expertise and hostile toward evidence and arithmetic. It is tethered to few, if any, meaningful policy preferences. It does not know, and does not care, about how competing proposals should be crafted, scrutinized, or implemented. This policy nihilism dominated the party's posture throughout Barack Obama's presidency, which in turn opened the door to Donald Trump -- who would cement the GOP's post-policy status in ways that were difficult to even imagine a few years earlier. The implications of this approach to governance are all-encompassing. Voters routinely elect Republicans such as Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz to powerful offices, expecting GOP policymakers to have the technocratic wherewithal to identify problems, weigh alternative solutions, forge coalitions, accept compromises, and apply some level of governmental competence, if not expertise. The party has consistently proven those hopes misguided. The result is an untenable political model that's undermining the American policymaking process and failing to serve the public's interests. The vital challenge facing the civil polity is coming to terms with the party's collapse as a governing entity and considering what the party can do to find its policymaking footing anew. The Impostors serves as a devastating indictment of the GOP's breakdown, identifying the culprits, the crisis, and its effects, while challenging Republicans with an imperative question: Are they ready to change direction? As Benen writes, "A great deal is riding on their answer."
This book is a study of pragmatic conservatism, an underappreciated tradition in modern American political thought, whose origins can be located in the ideas of Edmund Burke. Beginning with an exegesis of Burke's thought, it goes on to show how three twentieth-century thinkers who are not generally recognized as conservatives-Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Peter Viereck-carried on the Burkean tradition and adapted it to American democracy. Pragmatic conservatives posit that people, sinful by nature, require guidance from traditions that embody enduring truths wrought by past experience. Yet they also welcome incremental reform driven by established elites, judiciously departing from precedent when necessary. Mindful that truth is never absolute, they eschew ideology and caution against both bold political enterprises and stubborn apologies for the status quo. The book concludes by contrasting this more nuanced brand of conservatism with the radical version that emerged in the wake of the post-war Buckley revolution.
The Brexit and Trump shocks of 2016 mark a deep caesura in the history of liberal societies. It is no longer sufficient, if it ever was, to look at Western states' immigration and citizenship policies through the single lens of advancing liberalism. Instead, two additional forces need to be reckoned with: a new nationalism, but also the neoliberal restructuring of state and society in which it is generated. Joppke demonstrates that many of the new policies have their roots in neoliberalism rather than the new nationalism. Moreover, some of them, such as 'earned citizenship', are the product of neoliberalism and nationalism working in tandem, in terms of a neoliberal nationalism. The neoliberalism-nationalism nexus is complex, its elements sometimes opposing but sometimes complementing or even constituting one another. This topical book will appeal to students and scholars of populism, nationalism, and immigration and citizenship, across comparative politics, sociology and political theory.
The Brexit and Trump shocks of 2016 mark a deep caesura in the history of liberal societies. It is no longer sufficient, if it ever was, to look at Western states' immigration and citizenship policies through the single lens of advancing liberalism. Instead, two additional forces need to be reckoned with: a new nationalism, but also the neoliberal restructuring of state and society in which it is generated. Joppke demonstrates that many of the new policies have their roots in neoliberalism rather than the new nationalism. Moreover, some of them, such as 'earned citizenship', are the product of neoliberalism and nationalism working in tandem, in terms of a neoliberal nationalism. The neoliberalism-nationalism nexus is complex, its elements sometimes opposing but sometimes complementing or even constituting one another. This topical book will appeal to students and scholars of populism, nationalism, and immigration and citizenship, across comparative politics, sociology and political theory.
In the age of Brexit and Donald Trump, the radical right has gained significant popularity, characterized by a rhetoric of xenophobia, discrimination and "hate speech". This book examines why the politics of hate and ideologies of the far-right are on the rise and argues that to counter it we must challenge the sense of social and economic precarity this politics feeds off. Hate in Precarious Times examines five distinct types of precarity, covering threats to a particular way of life; fear of apocalyptic terrorism; the insecurity of austerity, and low-waged jobs in the wake of the Financial Crisis; challenges to privilege; and the spread of disinformation in a "post-truth" age. In this book, Neal Curtis seeks the root of what causes ordinary people to identify with far-right ideologies and asks what can be done to counter the conditions underpinning this.
From the acclaimed author of Listen, Liberal and What’s the Matter with Kansas, a scathing collection of interlocking essays perfect for this political moment. With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, New York Times–bestselling author Thomas Frank takes us on a tour through present-day America, showing us a society in the late stages of disintegration. Holding nothing back, Frank skewers both the right and left, and rages about the systematic inequality that led, in 2016, to millions of anxious, ordinary people rallying to the presidential campaign of a billionaire who meant them no good. For those who despair of the future of America and of reason itself, Rendezvous with Oblivion is a booster shot of energy, reality, and moral outrage.
Joshua L. Powell is the NRA--a lifelong gun advocate, in 2016, he began his new role as a senior strategist and chief of staff to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre. What Powell uncovered was horrifying: "the waste and dysfunction at the NRA was staggering." INSIDE THE NRA reveals for the first time the rise and fall of the most powerful political organization in America--how the NRA became feared as the Death Star of Washington lobbies and so militant and extreme as "to create and fuel the toxicity of the gun debate until it became outright explosive." INSIDE THE NRA explains this intentional toxic messaging was wholly the product of LaPierre's leadership and the extremist branding by his longtime PR puppet master Angus McQueen. In damning detail, Powell exposes the NRA's plan to "pour gasoline" on the fire in the fight against gun control, to sow discord to fill its coffers, and to secure the presidency for Donald J. Trump.
Examining the startling revival of the Scottish Conservative Party under Ruth Davidson's leadership Key features First book to examine the recent revival of the Scottish Conservative Party Analyses the Scottish Conservative Party and Ruth Davidson's leadership in ground-breaking ways, for example in the context of gender and LGBT politics; its relationships with the SNP, Northern Ireland, the Scottish media and the UK Tory Party; its use of Scottish national identity in promoting itself electorally Complements and updates David Torrance's 2012 edited volume for Edinburgh University Press on the decline of the party, Whatever Happened to Tory Scotland? Helps inform Scottish political and academic discourse ahead of the 2021 Holyrood elections When Ruth Davidson was elected leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party in 2011, it was considered something of a joke: in electoral decline for decades, politically irrelevant and apparently beyond the point of no return. But by 2017, 'Ruth Davidson's Conservatives' had become Scotland's second party at Holyrood and Westminster, and its leader spoken of as a future leader of the UK Conservative Party, if not the next Scottish First Minister. This book, which brings together leading academics and analysts, examines the extraordinary revival of the Scottish Conservative Party between 2011 and Ruth Davidson's shock resignation in 2019. Contributors look at the importance of gender and sexuality, the 2014 independence referendum, the Scottish media and the UK Conservative Party's 'territorial code' to the changing fortunes of the party and its leader, asking if it can be sustained amid the turbulence of two ongoing constitutional debates.
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2022 How rural areas have become uneven proving grounds for the American Dream. Late-stage capitalism is trying to remake rural America in its own image, and the resistance is telling. Small-town economies that have traditionally been based on logging, mining, farming, and ranching now increasingly rely on tourism, second-home ownership, and retirement migration. In Dividing Paradise, Jennifer Sherman tells the story of Paradise Valley, Washington, a rural community where amenity-driven economic growth has resulted in a new social landscape of inequality and privilege, with deep fault lines between old-timers and newcomers. In this complicated cultural reality, "class blindness" allows privileged newcomers to ignore or justify their impact on these towns, papering over the sentiments of anger, loss, and disempowerment of longtime locals. Based on in-depth interviews with individuals on both sides of the divide, this book explores the causes and repercussions of the stark inequity that has become commonplace across the United States. It exposes the mechanisms by which inequality flourishes and by which Americans have come to believe that disparity is acceptable and deserved. Sherman, who is known for her work on rural America, presents here a powerful case study of the ever-growing tensions between those who can and those who cannot achieve their visions of the American dream.
How clothing brands coded with racist and nationalist symbols are bringing extremism into the German mainstream Far right politics and extremist violence are on the rise across Europe, prompting scholars and policymakers to question why extremism has become so appealing to so many people. Cynthia Miller-Idriss examines how far right ideologies have entered mainstream German culture through commercialized products and clothing laced with extremist, anti-Semitic, racist, and nationalist coded symbols and references. Required reading for anyone concerned about the global resurgence of the far right, The Extreme Gone Mainstream shows how these new brands desensitize consumers to extremist ideas, dehumanize victims, and are virtually indistinguishable from other popular clothing.
The Conservative Establishment’s consensus of the past two generations has almost totally broken down. Conservatism was unable to stop or even slow the Left’s rolling revolutions in nearly every sector of American society—from classrooms to boardrooms, from the military to the culture at large. The Left has successfully transformed the nation over the past few generations, racking up victory after victory, with no clear end in sight. This is not sustainable for the country or the constituency represented by the Republican Party. For the Right to have a serious future, it needs to rethink its positions and think more deeply about the essential policy questions which will define the future of the country: race, men and women, sexuality, religion, the economy, foreign policy, and other major issues. This collection of essays, written by some of the Right’s most interesting thinkers and practitioners, seeks to reframe the ideological and policy direction of the American Right. With essays by Michael Anton, Richard Hanania, Carson Holloway, John Fonte, David Azerrad, Helen Andrews, Scott Yenor, Joshua Mitchell, Aaron Renn, Arthur Milikh, David P. Goldman, Matthew Peterson, James Poulos, Theo Wold, Robert Delahunty, Jesse Merriam, Jeremy Carl, Eric Kaufmann, and Roger Kimball.
What to make of the Tea Party? To some, it is a grassroots movement aiming to reclaim an out-of-touch government for the people. To others, it is a proto-fascist organization of the misinformed and manipulated lower middle class. Either way, it is surely one of the most significant forms of reaction in the age of Obama. In this definitive socio-political analysis of the Tea Party, Anthony DiMaggio examines the Tea Party phenomenon, using a vast array of primary and secondary sources as well as first-hand observation. He traces the history of the Tea Party and analyzes its organizational structure, membership, ideological coherence, and relationship to the mass media. And, perhaps most importantly, he asks: is it really a movement or just a form of "manufactured dissent" engineered by capital? DiMaggio's conclusions are thoroughly documented, surprising, and bring much needed clarity to a highly controversial subject.
"Mothers of Conservatism" tells the story of 1950s Southern Californian housewives who shaped the grassroots right in the two decades following World War II. Michelle Nickerson describes how red-hunting homemakers mobilized activist networks, institutions, and political consciousness in local education battles, and she introduces a generation of women who developed political styles and practices around their domestic routines. From the conservative movement's origins in the early fifties through the presidential election of 1964, Nickerson documents how women shaped conservatism from the bottom up, out of the fabric of their daily lives and into the agenda of the Republican Party. A unique history of the American conservative movement, "Mothers of Conservatism" shows how housewives got out of the house and discovered their political capital.
In his timely book, Mikhail Suslov discusses contemporary Russian geopolitical culture and argues that a better knowledge of geopolitical concepts and fantasies is instrumental for understanding Russias policies. Specifically, he analyzes such concepts as Eurasianism, Holy Russia, Russian civilization, Russia as a continent, Novorossia, and others. He demonstrates that these concepts reached unprecedented ascendance in the Russian public debates, tending to overshadow other political and domestic discussions. Suslov argues that the geopolitical imagination, structured by these concepts, defines the identity of post-Soviet Russia, while this complex of geopolitical representations engages, at the same time, with the broader, international criticism of the Western liberal world order and aligns itself with the conservative defense of cultural authenticity across the globe. Geopolitical ideologies and utopias discussed in the book give the post-Soviet political mainstream the intellectual instruments to think about Russias exclusion -- imaginary or otherwise -- from the processes of a global world which is re-shaping itself after the end of the Cold War; they provide tools to construct the self-perception of Russia as a sovereign great-power, a self-sufficient civilisation, and as one of the poles in a multipolar world; and they help to establish the Messianic vision of Russia as the beacon of order, tradition, and morality in a sea of chaos and corruption.
Fox Populism offers fresh insights into why the Fox News Channel has been both commercially successful and politically effective. Where existing explanations of Fox's appeal have stressed the network's conservative editorial slant, Reece Peck sheds light on the importance of style as a generative mode of ideology. The book traces the historical development of Fox's counter-elite news brand and reveals how its iconoclastic news style was crafted by fusing two class-based traditions of American public culture: one native to the politics in populism and one native to the news field in tabloid journalism. Using the network's coverage of the late-2000s economic crisis as the book's principal case study, Peck then shows how style is deployed as a political tool to frame news events. A close analysis of top-rated programs reveals how Fox hails its audience as 'the real Americans' and successfully represents narrow, conservative political demands as popular and universal.
Since the 1980s, a ritualized opposition in legal thought between a conservative 'originalism' and a liberal 'living constitutionalism' has obscured the aggressively contested tradition committed to, and mobilization of arguments for, constitutional restoration and redemption within the broader postwar American conservative movement. Conservatives and the Constitution is the first history of the political and intellectual trajectory of this foundational tradition and mobilization. By looking at the deep stories told either by identity groups or about what conservatives took to be flashpoint topics in the postwar period, Ken I. Kersch seeks to capture the developmental and integrative nature of postwar constitutional conservatism, challenging conservatives and liberals alike to more clearly see and understand both themselves and their presumed political and constitutional opposition. Conservatives and the Constitution makes a unique contribution to our understanding of modern American conservatism, and to the constitutional thought that has, in critical ways, informed and defined it.
This abridgement of Reflections on the Revolution in France preserves the dynamism of Edmund Burke's polemic while excising a number of detail-laden passages that are of less interest to modern readers. Brian R. Clack's introduction offers a compelling overview of the text and explores the consistency and coherence of Burke's views on revolution. Burke's critique of revolutionary politics is illuminated further by the extensive supplementary materials collected in a number of themed appendices. These include a selection of background material essential for an understanding of the Reflections, an overview of Burke's response to the American Revolution, a sampling of his earliest and later views on the French Revolution, selections from Burke's writings on reform, passages from A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, and a representative sampling of contemporary critical responses to the Reflections.
'A landmark contribution to humanity's understanding of itself' The New York Times Why can it sometimes feel as though half the population is living in a different moral universe? Why do ideas such as 'fairness' and 'freedom' mean such different things to different people? Why is it so hard to see things from another viewpoint? Why do we come to blows over politics and religion? Jonathan Haidt reveals that we often find it hard to get along because our minds are hardwired to be moralistic, judgemental and self-righteous. He explores how morality evolved to enable us to form communities, and how moral values are not just about justice and equality - for some people authority, sanctity or loyalty matter more. Morality binds and blinds, but, using his own research, Haidt proves it is possible to liberate ourselves from the disputes that divide good people. |
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