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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Conservatism & right-of-centre democratic ideologies
The extraordinary shift in conduct and orientation-among companies, governments, and individuals-generated by financialization. The hegemony of finance compels a new orientation for everyone and everything: companies care more about the moods of their shareholders than about longstanding commercial success; governments subordinate citizen welfare to appeasing creditors; and individuals are concerned less with immediate income from labor than with appreciation of their capital goods, skills, connections, and reputations. In this book, in clear and compelling prose, Michel Feher explains the extraordinary shift in conduct and orientation generated by financialization. That firms, states, and people depend more on their ratings than on the product of their activities also changes how capitalism is resisted. For activists, the focus of grievances shifts from the extraction of profit to the conditions under which financial institutions allocate credit. While the exploitation of employees by their employers has hardly been curbed, the power of investors to select investees-to decide who and what is deemed creditworthy-has become a new site of social struggle. Above all, Feher articulates the new political resistances and aspirations that investees draw from their rated agency.
This book is an eye-opening account of transnational advocacy, not by environmental and rights groups, but by conservative activists. Mobilizing around diverse issues, these networks challenge progressive foes across borders and within institutions. In these globalized battles, opponents struggle as much to advance their own causes as to destroy their rivals. Deploying exclusionary strategies, negative tactics and dissuasive ideas, they aim both to make and unmake policy. In this work, Clifford Bob chronicles combat over homosexuality and gun control in the UN, the Americas, Europe and elsewhere. He investigates the 'Baptist-burqa' network of conservative believers attacking gay rights, and the global gun coalition blasting efforts to control firearms. Bob draws critical conclusions about norms, activists and institutions, and his broad findings extend beyond the culture wars. They will change how campaigners fight, scholars study policy wars, and all of us think about global politics.
The postwar United States has experienced many forms of populist politics, none more consequential than that of the blue-collar white ethnics who brought figures like Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump to the White House. Blue-Collar Conservatism traces the rise of this little-understood, easily caricatured variant of populism by presenting a nuanced portrait of the supporters of Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo. In 1971, Frank Rizzo became the first former police commissioner elected mayor of a major American city. Despite serving as a Democrat, Rizzo cultivated his base of support by calling for "law and order" and opposing programs like public housing, school busing, affirmative action, and other policies his supporters deemed unearned advantages for nonwhites. Out of this engagement with the interwoven politics of law enforcement, school desegregation, equal employment, and urban housing, Timothy J. Lombardo argues, blue-collar populism arose. Based on extensive archival research, and with an emphasis on interrelated changes to urban space and blue-collar culture, Blue-Collar Conservatism challenges the familiar backlash narrative, instead contextualizing blue-collar politics within postwar urban and economic crises. Historian and Philadelphia-native Lombardo demonstrates how blue-collar whites did not immediately abandon welfare liberalism but instead selectively rejected liberal policies based on culturally defined ideas of privilege, disadvantage, identity, and entitlement. While grounding his analysis in the postwar era's familiar racial fissures, Lombardo also emphasizes class identity as an indispensable driver of blue-collar political engagement. Blue-Collar Conservatism ultimately shows how this combination of factors created one of the least understood but most significant political developments in recent American history.
A study of the most racially conscious aspect of the Conservative movement and its impact on politics and current public policy. The rise of the Conservative movement in the United States over the last two decades is evident in current public policy, including the passage of the Welfare Reform Act, the weakening of affirmative action, and the approval of educational vouchers for private schooling. At the same time, new rules on congressional redistricting prohibit legislators from constructing majority black congressional districts, and blacks continue to suffer disproportionate rates of incarceration and death-penalty sentencing. In this significant new study, the distinguished political scientist Ronald W. Walters argues that the Conservative movement during this period has had an inordinate impact on American governing institutions and that a strong, though very often unstated, racial hostility drives the public policies put forth by Conservative politicians. Walters traces the emergence of what he calls a new White Nationalism, showing how it fuels the Conservative movement, invades the public discourse, and generates policies that protect the interests of white voters at the expense of blacks and other nonwhites. Using historical and contemporary examples of White Nationalist policy, as well as empirical public opinion data, Walters demonstrates the degree to which this ideology exists among white voters and the negative impact of its policies on the black community. White Nationalism, Black Interests terms the current period a "second Reconstruction, " comparing the racial dynamics in the post-Civil Rights era to those of the first Reconstruction following the end of the Civil War.Walters's analysis of contemporary racial politics is uniquely valuable to scholars and lay readers alike and is sure to spark further public debate.
Explores the cultural and political significance of the election of President Trump Donald J. Trump's presidency has delivered a seismic shock to the American political system, its public sphere, and to our political culture worldwide. Written by leading scholars across a range of disciplines, as well as professionals in the field of political journalism, this collection of essays offers a deeper understanding of Trump and the impact that his rise to power has had both domestically and worldwide. The first section provides varied perspectives on the realignments of political culture in the United States that signify a paradigm shift, a radical disruption of fundamental beliefs and values about the political process and national identity. The second section of the book focuses on US foreign policy and diplomacy, taking stock of how the Trump presidency has disturbed the international system and US primacy within it. The third section of the book addresses the dynamics and consequences of what has come to be called "post-truth" politics, where conviction surpasses facts and the norms of political communication have been profoundly disrupted. Liam Kennedy is Professor of American Studies and Director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin.
American political development (APD) is a core subfield in American political science, and focuses on political and policy history. For a variety of reasons, most of the focus in the twentieth century APD has been on liberal policymaking. Yet since the 1970s, conservatives have gradually assumed control over numerous federal policymaking institutions. This edited book will be the first to offer a comprehensive overview of the impact of conservatism on twentieth century American political development, locating its origins in the New Deal and then focusing on how conservatives acted within government once they began to achieve power in the late 1960s. The book is divided into three eras, and in each it focuses on three core issues: social security, the environment, and education. Throughout, the authors emphasize the ironic role of conservatism in the expansion of the American state. Scholars of the state have long focuses on liberalism because liberals were the architects of state expansion. However, as conservatives increased their presence in the federal apparatus, they were frequently co-opted into maintaining of even expanding public fiscal and regulatory power. At times, conservatives also came to accept the existence of the liberal state, but attempted to use it to achieve conservative policy ends. Despite conservatives' power in the US politics and governance, the American state remains gargantuan. As Conservatism and American Political Development shows, the new right has not only helped shape the state, but has been shaped by it as well.
Between Jesus and the Market looks at the appeal of the Christian right-wing movement in contemporary American politics and culture. In her discussions of books and videotapes that are widely distributed by the Christian right but little known by mainstream Americans, Linda Kintz makes explicit the crucial need to understand the psychological makeup of born-again Christians as well as the sociopolitical dynamics involved in their cause. She focuses on the role of religious women in right-wing Christianity and asks, for example, why so many women are attracted to what is often seen as an antiwoman philosophy. The result, a telling analysis of the complexity and appeal of the "emotions that matter" to many Americans, highlights how these emotions now determine public policy in ways that are increasingly dangerous for those outside familiarity's circle. With texts from such organizations as the Christian Coalition, the Heritage Foundation, and Concerned Women for America, and writings by Elizabeth Dole, Newt Gingrich, Pat Robertson, and Rush Limbaugh, Kintz traces the usefulness of this activism for the secular claim that conservative political economy is, in fact, simply an expression of the deepest and most admirable elements of human nature itself. The discussion of Limbaugh shows how he draws on the skepticism of contemporary culture to create a sense of absolute truth within his own media performance-its truth guaranteed by the market. Kintz also describes how conservative interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence have been used to challenge causes such as feminism, women's reproductive rights, and gay and lesbian rights. In addition to critiquing the intellectual and political left for underestimating the power of right-wing grassroots organizing, corporate interests, and postmodern media sophistication, Between Jesus and the Market discusses the proliferation of militia groups, Christian entrepreneurship, and the explosive growth and "selling" of the Promise Keepers.
Democratising Conservative leadership selection traces the effects of democracy on the British Conservative Party, specifically looking at how changes in the ways the Conservatives elect their leaders have altered their mandate to lead. The book includes analysis of the original undemocratic 'system' whereby a leader 'emerged' from a shadowy process of consultation, and of the six elections between 1965 and 1997 where the parliamentary Conservative Party alone chose the Party leader. This historical perspective is followed by in-depth analysis of the three contests since 2001 that have taken place under the 'Hague rules', according to which ordinary Party members have the final say. This is the most comprehensive account yet published of the operation of those rules on the Conservative Party and the legitimacy of its leadership, and of the 2005 election of David Cameron. This book will be essential reading for students, academic specialists and anyone interested in the recent history and contemporary practice of British Conservatism. -- .
Only the second woman to hold office at 10 Downing Street, Theresa May inherits the most difficult political mandate of recent times: to negotiate Britain's exit from the European Union and re-establish its place in the wider world. She is known as an uncompromising and fiercely moral political operator who has risen through the ranks through profound competence, instead of cronyism. Her premiership promises to overthrow what she calls the "Nasty Party" image the Conservative Party has brought upon itself through infighting, career-politicking, and dishonesty, and restore a steady hand to the tiller of a nation in turmoil. But there is much more to her story than has emerged in the wake of the Brexit vote. Here, experienced journalist and political observer Virginia Blackburn examines the astonishing career, the politics, and the quite remarkable life of the woman who is tasked with changing not just the public face of the Conservatives, but the very fabric of the United Kingdom itself.
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.
Comparative Politics is a series for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary issues in comparative government and politics. The General Editors are Max Kaase, Professor of Political Science, Vice President and Dean, School of Humanities and Social Science, International University Bremen, Germany; and Kenneth Newton, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Southampton. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. This book has three aims. First, it explores the extreme right in order to assess its ideological meaning and its political expression. Beginning with a discussion of the meaning and usefulness of the Left-Right distinction, it deals with the varying significance of the term 'right' and discusses the appropriateness of the competing terms: 'radical', 'new', 'populist', and 'extreme right'. The book argues that the traditional neo-fascist party has been supplanted by a new type of extreme right party, unrelated to fascist ideology, but nevertheless opposed to the fundamental values of the democratic political system. The book's second aim is to carry out an in-depth analysis of the post-war evolution of the extreme right of each country in Western Europe. The analysis highlights their lineage from pre-war fascist regimes or movements, their different partisan expressions in the post-war period, their ideological profile, their party's relationship with other actors in the party system, the socio-demographic and attitudinal profile of their voter-base, and the conditions which have favoured or inhibited their development. Finally, the book discusses in detail more recent trends within the West European extreme right and outlines a conceptual framework for explaining the development of this 'political family' and the success or failure of each political party. The volume, extensively revised, expanded, and updated from its original widely acclaimed Italian edition, will be essential reading for all those working on parties and movements in Western Europe.
Building on Schmitz's earlier work, Thank God They're On Our Side, this is an examination of American policy toward right-wing dictatorships from the 1960s to the end of the Cold War. During the 1920s American leaders developed a policy of supporting authoritarian regimes because they were seen as stable, anti-communist, and capitalist. After 1965, however, American support for these regimes became a contested issue. The Vietnam War served to undercut the logic and rationale of supporting right-wing dictators. By systematically examining U.S. support for right-wing dictatorships in Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and bringing together these disparate episodes, this book examines the persistence of older attitudes, the new debates brought about by the Vietnam War, and the efforts to bring about changes and an end to automatic U.S. support for authoritarian regimes.
Popular radio host and conservative legal and political commentator
Jordan
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.
When most people think of the history of modern conservatism, they think of Ronald Reagan. Yet this narrow view leaves many to question: How did Donald Trump win the presidency? And what is the future of the Republican Party? In The Right, Matthew Continetti gives a sweeping account of movement conservatism's evolution, from the Progressive Era through the present. He tells the story of how conservatism began as networks of intellectuals, developing and institutionalizing a vision that grew over time, until they began to buckle under new pressures, resembling national populist movements. Drawing out the tensions between the desire for mainstream acceptance and the pull of extremism, Continetti argues that the more one studies conservatism's past, the more one becomes convinced of its future. Deeply researched and brilliantly told, The Right is essential reading for anyone looking to understand American conservatism.
John Stuart Mill described the Conservatives as 'the stupidest party', yet they governed the UK for nearly three-quarters of the twentieth century. Conservative leaders typically have been and are explicitly anti-intellectual, yet the party is not without an intellectual history of its own. Ideologies of Conservatism charts developments and changes in the nature of Conservative political thought and the meaning of Conservatism throughout the twentieth century. Ewen Green's penetrating study explores the Conservative mind from the Edwardian crisis under Balfour to the Thatcherite 1980s and beyond. It examines how Conservative thinkers, politicians, and activists sought to define the problems they faced, what they thought they were arguing against, and what audiences they were seeking to reach. This is the only study which blends the history of Conservative thought with the party's political action, and it offers significant new insights into the political culture of the 'Conservative Century'.
"Over its life the Review printed seminal writing on free market and conservative topics by remarkably mature students and by Russell Kirk, Ludwig von Mises, George Stigler, Benjamin Rogge, and other already established men. What characterized the Review writers was their rigor of thought and concern for principles, features that coexist naturally.--Chronicles"Initially sponsored by the University of Chicago Chapter of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, the "New Individualist Review" was more than the usual "campus magazine." It declared itself "founded in a commitment to human liberty." Between 1961 and 1968, seventeen issues were published which attracted a national audience of readers. Its contributors spanned the libertarian-conservative spectrum, from F. A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises to Richard M. Weaver and William F. Buckley, Jr.In his introduction to this reprint edition, Milton Friedman--one of the magazine's faculty advisors--writes that the "Review" set "an intellectual standard that has not yet, I believe, been matched by any of the more recent publications in the same philosophical tradition.
Dissatisfied with a liberal Republican party, American conservatives in the 1960s engineered a revolution. Mainstream conservatives advocated reform through the development of party and electoral solutions, while extremists looked to private organizations. Though often at odds, the divisions cross-fertilized each other, giving rise to new strategic and tactical strains, and bringing political success by the end of the decade.
Can libertarians care about social justice? In "Free Market Fairness," John Tomasi argues that they can and should. Drawing simultaneously on moral insights from defenders of economic liberty such as F. A. Hayek and advocates of social justice such as John Rawls, Tomasi presents a new theory of liberal justice. This theory, free market fairness, is committed to both limited government and the material betterment of the poor. Unlike traditional libertarians, Tomasi argues that property rights are best defended not in terms of self-ownership or economic efficiency but as requirements of democratic legitimacy. At the same time, he encourages egalitarians concerned about social justice to listen more sympathetically to the claims ordinary citizens make about the importance of private economic liberty in their daily lives. In place of the familiar social democratic interpretations of social justice, Tomasi offers a "market democratic" conception of social justice: free market fairness. Tomasi argues that free market fairness, with its twin commitment to economic liberty and a fair distribution of goods and opportunities, is a morally superior account of liberal justice. Free market fairness is also a distinctively American ideal. It extends the notion, prominent in America's founding period, that protection of property and promotion of real opportunity are indivisible goals. Indeed, according to Tomasi, free market fairness is social justice, American style. Provocative and vigorously argued, "Free Market Fairness" offers a bold new way of thinking about politics, economics, and justice--one that will challenge readers on both the left and right.
Dissatisfied with a liberal Republican party, American conservatives in the 1960s engineered a revolution. Mainstream conservatives advocated reform through the development of party and electoral solutions, while extremists looked to private organizations. Though often at odds, the divisions cross-fertilized each other, giving rise to new strategic and tactical strains, and bringing political success by the end of the decade.
Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers provides comprehensive accounts of the works of seminal conservative thinkers from a variety of periods, disciplines and traditions - the first series of its kind. Even the selection of thinkers adds another aspect to conservative thinking, including not only theorists but also thinkers in literary forms and those who are also practitioners. The series comprises twenty volumes, each including an intellectual biography, historical context, critical exposition of the thinker's work, reception and influence, contemporary relevance, bibliography including references to electronic resources and an index.
"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." -H.L. Mencken The Left used to be the party of the hippies and the free spirits. Now it's home to woke scolds and humorless idealogues. The New Puritans can judge a person's moral character by their clothes, Netflix queue, fast food favorites, the sports they watch, and the company they keep. No choice is neutral, no sphere is private. Not since the Puritans has a political movement wanted so much power over your thoughts, hobbies, and preferences every minute of your day. In the process, they are sucking the joy out of life. In The Rise of the New Puritans, Noah Rothman explains how, in pursuit of a better world, progressives are ruining the very things which make life worth living. They've created a society full of verbal trip wires and digital witch hunts. Football? Too violent. Fusion food? Appropriation. The nuclear family? Oppressive. Witty, deeply researched, and thorough, The Rise of the New Puritans encourages us to spurn a movement whose primary goal has become limiting happiness. It uncovers the historical roots of the left's war on fun and reminds us of the freedom and personal fulfillment at the heart of the American experiment.
In this two-volume work the author, a Rutgers University professor, argues that recently organized right-wing interests, sometimes called the counter-establishment, rose to power during the Reagan and Bush years, and exerted great influence in these two administrations, particularly the former. In the first major volume, entitled 'The American right-wing takes command - key executive appointments', Burch takes a close look at the economic background and think tank ties of many of the people appointed to high posts in these rightist regimes-officials such as the CIA's William Casey, Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, his second-term Attorney General, (and first-term high White House aided) Edwin Meese, and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.All of these new men were connected to some part of America's new counter-establishment, a complex headed by such groups as the American Enterprise Institute, Committee on the Present Danger, Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institution, Institute for Contemporary Studies, and the (Joseph Coorsbacked) Mountain States Legal Foundation. This skewed recruitment pattern also held true for many of the second-and third tier posts in the administration of Ronald Reagan and, to a lesser extend, that of George Bush. Along with this study of the appointment process under Reagan a brief analysis of such issues as antitrust and civil rights es also provided in the course of this work.Following the same line of analysis, in the second part of this work, entitled 'The American Right-Wing at Court and in Action - Supreme Court Nominations and Major Policy-making', the author found that four of the six people appointed to the Supreme Court (or elevated to the top post of Chief Justice) during this period were closely associated, at one time or another, with right-wing think tanks - namely William Rehnquist, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. Thus, since people making policy (an old axiom), it is not surprising that the public policy in the Reagan and Bush years took a sharp turn to the right. This was particularly true in such important fields as foreign policy, military spending, and economics and taxation. In the last three chapters , Burch presents case studies of the political and economic forces at work in the Iran-Contra affair, the SDI (Star Wars) program, 'voodoo economics' (George Bush's term), and the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
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