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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political parties > General
The Conservative Party has been the dominant force in
twentieth-century British politics. On its own or as the
predominant partner in a coalition it has held power for more than
sixty years since 1900. Despite this it has been the most neglected
and misunderstood of all the main parties. This book is the first
systematic attempt to survey the history and politics of the
Conservative Party across the whole of the twentieth century from
the `Khaki' election of 1900 to John Major's victory of 1992 and
beyond. Traditional boundaries between history and political
science have been ignored, with each of the authoritative team of
contributors pursuing an important theme within three main areas;
the composition and structure of the Party; its ideas, policies and
actions in government; and its public image and sources of support
in the country. The essays are based upon new research, in
particular in the Conservative Party archives. Conservative Century
will be essential reading for both students and specialists, and it
offers a mine of fascinating information for anyone interested in
British politics.
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
South Africa faces enormous challenges brought about by the legacy of its horrible past and the actions of its present.
In the twenty years since the advent of democracy the country has come to believe that the ailments of its soul will be solved by state bureaucratic interventions. While at a material level this may be true, at the core of its failure to confront its demons successfully is a missing moral and philosophical foundation to the future it wants to build. Desperate to build a new, positive and uplifting narrative of itself, South Africa has failed at the task of constructing a society and instead sought to maintain a fragile truce between bitterly competing interests.
Raising the Bar provides a fresh, unencumbered analysis of the topics that pervade our daily lives, including race, leadership, politics, government, violence, the position of women and the taboos that haunt us. It explores why we are the people we have become and the future our present state is building. Uncomfortable and littered with vulnerabilities and problems, this is a task we can no longer delay. It is the only way to lay a solid foundation to ensure that we become a prosperous nation.
To many observers, the 2008 elections augured the end of the
conservative era in American politics. Buoyed by a reaction against
Great Society liberalism and the Republican Party's shrewd
race-based "Southern Strategy, " the modern conservative movement
first enjoyed success in the late 1960s. By the 1980s, the movement
had captured the White House. And in the early 2000s conservatives
scaled the summit as a conservative true believer, George W. Bush,
won two presidential elections - and the Republican Party captured
both houses of Congress. But currently they have few credible
presidential prospects. Today's most recognizable Republican, Sarah
Palin, is regarded by most of the electorate as an ill-informed
extremist. And the Democrats have commanding majorities in both the
Senate and the House. What happened? The Crisis of Conservatism
gathers a broad range of leading scholars of conservatism to assess
the current state of the movement and where it is most likely
headed in the near future. Featuring both empirical essays that
analyze the reasons for the movement's current parlous state and
more normative essays that offer new directions for the movement,
the book is a comprehensive account of contemporary conservatism at
its nadir. Throughout, the editors and the contributors focus on
three issues. The first is the extent to which the terrain of
American politics remains favorable to the Republican Party and
conservative causes, notwithstanding the Obama victory of 2008. The
second is the strategic ability of the Republicans and the wider
conservative movement to renew their strength after the shattering
experience of the past few years. The third issue they focus on is
the extent to which conservative attitudes and values, policy
preferences and impulses of the period since 1980 have in fact
created a new consensus, one which the Obama administration will
find it difficult to escape, regardless of his "change " rhetoric.
They conclude that if conservatism does in fact remain a powerful
shaper of the electorate's values, then the American right could
very well reconfigure itself and begin the journey back to
credibility and power.
"The essential handbook for thinking and talking Democratic--must
reading not only for every Democrat but for every responsible
citizen" (Robert B. Reich, former Secretary of Labor and author of
"Beyond Outrage").
Voters cast their ballots for what they believe is right, for the
things that make moral sense. Yet Democrats have too often failed
to use language linking their moral values with their policies. The
Little Blue Book demonstrates how to make that connection clearly
and forcefully, with hands-on advice for discussing the most
pressing issues of our time: the economy, health care, women's
issues, energy and environmental policy, education, food policy,
and more. Dissecting the ways that extreme conservative positions
have permeated political discourse, Lakoff and Wehling show how to
fight back on moral grounds and in concrete terms. Revelatory,
passionate, and deeply practical, The Little Blue Book will forever
alter the way Democrats and progressives think and talk about
politics.
The issue of electoral reform has divided the Labour Party since
its inception, but only for a brief period in the early 20th
century has the Party been committed to reforming
first-past-the-post (FPTP). Now, having suffered four successive
general election defeats, the Labour Party will have to reconsider
its electoral strategy if it is, once again, to become a party of
government. For some, a commitment to electoral reform is an
indispensable step to widen support, transform the Party, and
unlock British Politics. For others, the present system still
offers the best hope of majority Labour governments, avoiding deals
with the Party's rivals and the watering down of Labour's social
democratic agenda. This book explores the Labour Party's approaches
towards reforming the Westminster electoral system, and more
widely, its perception of electoral pacts and coalition government.
The opening chapters chart the debate from the inception of the
Party up to the electoral and political impact of Thatcherism. From
there, the book takes a closer look at significant recent events,
including the Plant Report, the Jenkins Commission, the end of New
Labour, the Alternative Vote Referendum, and closing with the
Labour leadership containing the matter at Party Conference, 2021.
Importantly, it offers an assessment of the pressures and
environment in which Labour politicians have operated. Extensive
elite-level interviews and new archival research offers the reader
a comprehensive and definitive account of this debate.
Inspired by Raymond Williams' cultural materialism, H.F. Pimlott
explores the connections between political practice and cultural
form through Marxism Today's transformation from a Communist Party
theoretical journal into a 'glossy' left magazine. Marxism Today's
successes and failures during the 1980s are analysed through its
political and cultural critiques of Thatcherism and the left,
especially by Stuart Hall and Eric Hobsbawm, innovative publicity
and marketplace distribution, relationships with the national UK
press, cultural coverage, design and format, and writing style.
Wars of Position offers insights for contemporary media activists
and challenges the neglect of the left press by media scholars.
WINNER OF THE 2022 VICTORIA SCHUCK AWARD, GIVEN BY THE AMERICAN
POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION Why Democratic women far outnumber
Republican women in elective offices From Kamala Harris and
Elizabeth Warren to Stacey Abrams and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
women around the country are running in-and winning-elections at an
unprecedented rate. It appears that women are on a steady march
toward equal representation across state legislatures and the US
Congress, but there is a sharp divide in this representation along
party lines. Most of the women in office are Democrats, and the
number of elected Republican women has been plunging for decades.
In The Partisan Gap, Elder examines why this disparity in women's
representation exists, and why it's only going to get worse.
Drawing on interviews with female office-holders, candidates, and
committee members, she takes a look at what it is like to be a
woman in each party. From party culture and ideology, to candidate
recruitment and the makeup of regional biases, Elder shows the
factors contributing to this harmful partisan gap, and what can be
done to address it in the future. The Partisan Gap explores the
factors that help, and hinder, women's political representation.
Texas is a solid red state. Or trending purple. Or soon to be blue.
One thing is certain: as Texas looms ever larger in national
politics, the makeup of its electorate increasingly matters. At a
critical moment, as migration, immigration, and a maturing populace
alter the state's political landscape, this book presents a deeply
researched, data-rich look at who Texas voters are, what they want,
and what it might mean for the future of the Republican and
Democratic parties, the state, and the nation. Battle for the Heart
of Texas goes beyond the pronouncements of leaders and pundits to
reveal voters' nuanced opinions-about the 2020 Democratic primary
candidates, state and national Republicans' responses to the
Covid-19 pandemic, and issues such as immigration and gun policy.
Working with an unprecedented cache of polling figures and
qualitative data from surveys and focus groups-the product of a
cooperative effort between the Dallas Morning News and The
University of Texas at Tyler-Mark Owens, Kenneth A. Wink, and
Kenneth Bryant Jr. provide an in-depth examination of what is
reshaping voter preferences across Texas, including the partisan
impact of the urbanization and nationalization of state politics.
Their analyses pinpoint the influence of race, media exposure,
ideological diversity within the parties, and geographic variation
across the state, detailing how Texas politics has changed over
time. Race may not have typically defined Texas politics, for
instance, but the authors find that rhetoric on policies related to
race are now shaping the electorate. The diversity in civic
engagement among the Latino community also emerges from the data,
compounded and complicated by the growth of the Latino population
of voting age. The largest red state in the country, with the
second-largest population, Texas is crucial to the way we think
about political change in America-and this book amply and precisely
equips us to understand the bellwether state's changing politics.
How is foreign policy made in Iraq? Based on dozens of interviews
with senior officials and politicians, this book provides a clear
analysis of the development of domestic Iraqi politics since 2003.
Zana Gulmohamad explains how the federal government of Iraq and
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have functioned and worked
together since toppling Saddam to reveal in granular detail the
complexity of their foreign policy making. The book shows that the
ruling elites and political factions in Baghdad and in the capital
of the Kurdistan Region, Erbil, create foreign policies according
to their agendas. The formulation and implementation of the two
governments' foreign policies is to a great extent uncoordinated.
Yet Zana Gulmohamad places this incoherent model of foreign policy
making in the context of the country's fragmented political and
social context and explains how Iraq's neighbouring countries -
Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria before the civil war - have
each influenced its internal affairs. The book is the first study
dedicated to the contemporary dynamics of the Iraqi state - outside
the usual focus on the "great powers" - and it explains exactly how
Iraqi foreign policy is managed alongside the country's economic
and security interests.
"Now with an updated epilogue about the 2010 elections."
This is the inside story of one of the most stunning reversals
of political fortune in American history. Four years ago, the GOP
dominated politics at every level in Colorado. Republicans held
both Senate seats, five of seven congressional seats, the
governor's mansion, the offices of secretary of state and
treasurer, and both houses of the state legislature. After the 2008
election, the exact opposite was true: replace the word Republicans
with Democrats in the previous sentence, and you have of one the
most stunning reversals of political fortune in American
history.This is also the story of how it will happen--indeed, is
happening--in other states across the country. In Colorado,
progressives believe they have found a blueprint for creating
permanent Democratic majorities across the nation. With discipline
and focus, they have pioneered a legal architecture designed to
take advantage of new campaign finance laws and an emerging breed
of progressive donors who are willing to commit unprecedented
resources to local races. It's simple, brilliant, and very
effective.Rob Witwer is a former member of the Colorado House of
Representatives and practices law in Denver.Emmy award-winning
journalist Adam Schrager covers politics for KUSA-TV, the NBC
affiliate in Denver. Schrager and his family live in the Denver
area. He is the author of "The Principled Politician: Governor
Ralph Carr and the Fight against Japanese Internment"
This groundbreaking comparative study rediscovers the socialists of
Russia's borderlands, upending conventional interpretations of
working-class politics and the Russian Revolution. Researched in
eight languages, Revolutionary Social Democracy challenges
long-held assumptions by scholars and activists about the dynamics
of revolutionary change.
Elections ask voters to choose between political parties. But
voters across the UK are increasingly being presented with
fundamentally different, and largely disconnected, sets of
political choices. This book is about this hollowing out of a
genuinely British democratic politics: how and why it has occurred,
and why it matters. Electoral choices across Britain became
increasingly differentiated along national lines over much of the
last half-century. In 2017, for the second general election in a
row, four different parties came first in the UK's four nations. UK
voters are increasingly faced with general election campaigns that
are largely disconnected from each other. At the same time, voters
acquire much of their information about the election from
news-media based in London that display little understanding of
these national distinctions. The UK continues to elect
representatives to a single parliament. But the shared debates and
sets of choices that tie a political community together are
increasingly absent. Separate national political arenas and agendas
still have to interact but in some respects the House of Commons
increasingly resembles the European Parliament - whose members are
democratically chosen but from a disconnected series of separate
national electoral contests. This is deeply problematic for the
long-term unity and integrity of the UK.
He is a most unlikely revolutionary: a middle-aged, middle-class
former grammar schoolboy who honed his radicalism on the mean
streets of rural Shropshire. Last summer, this little-known
outsider rode a wave of popular enthusiasm to win the Labour Party
leadership by a landslide, with a greater mandate than any British
political leader before him. This new edition of the critically
acclaimed biography brings the Jeremy Corbyn story fully up to
date, setting out how this very British iconoclast managed to
snatch the leadership of a party he spent forty years rebelling
against and, despite rebellion from within his own ranks, managed
to galvanise millions to vote for him in the 2017 general election.
Engaging, clear-sighted and above all revealing, Comrade Corbyn
explores the extraordinary story of the most unexpected leader in
modern British politics.
An important new book by one of the Britain's great liberal
thinkers, Hearts and Minds is part memoir, part political history
and part history of ideas. In it, former Cabinet minister Oliver
Letwin explains how the central ideas and policies of the modern
Conservative party came into being, how they have played out over
the period from Mrs Thatcher to Mrs May, and what needs to happen
next in order to make the country a better place to live. Far from
being a sugar-coated version of events, Letwin tells a story that
he hopes will persuade readers that politicians are capable of
recognising their mistakes and learning from them - and will show
that social and economic liberalism, if correctly conceived, are
capable of addressing the issues that confront us today. The book
also describes Letwin's own journey from a remarkable childhood
with American academic parents, via Margaret Thatcher's policy
unit, into the very centre of first the Conservative-Liberal
Democrat coalition, and then the Cameron government, where, as
Minister for Government Policy and then Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, every piece of government policy crossed his desk. It
includes Letwin's personal reflections on two devastating electoral
events: the EU referendum and the general election of June 2017.
Founded by MK Gandhi early in his career, the Natal Indian Congress
is one of the oldest political organizations in South Africa. This
book traces its course through colonial anti-Asiatic feeling, past
apartheid, and into the new democracy.
In Cuba Was Different, Even Sandvik Underlid explores the views of
Cuban authorities, official press, and Party members as they
reflect back on the collapse of Soviet and Eastern European
socialism. In so doing, he contributes to a better understanding as
to why the Cuban system - often associated with Fidel Castro's
leadership - did not itself collapse. Despite the loss of its most
important allies, key ideological referents, and even most of its
foreign trade, Cuba did not embrace capitalism. The author
critically examines and analyzes the collapse of the USSR and
Eastern Europe as reported in the Cuban Communist Party newspaper
Granma, both as they unfolded and subsequently through the lens of
additional interviews with individual Party members. This focus on
Cuba's Communist Party provides new perspectives on how these
events were seen from Cuba and on the notable resilience of many
party members.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Turkey relentlessly persecuted any
form of Kurdish dissent. This led to the radicalisation of an
increasing number of Kurds, the rise of the Kurdish national
movement and the PKK's insurgency against Turkey. Political
activism by the Kurds or around Kurdish-related political demands
continues to be viewed with deep suspicions by Turkey's political
establishment and severely restricted. Despite this, the
pro-Kurdish democratic movement has emerged, providing Kurds with a
channel to represent themselves and articulate their demands. This
book is timely contribution to the debate on the Kurds' political
representation in Turkey, tracing the different forms it has taken
since 1950. The book highlights how the transformations in Kurdish
society have affected the types of actors involved in politics and
the avenues, organisations and networks Kurds use to challenge the
state. Based on survey data obtained from over 350 individuals,
this is the first book to provide an in-depth analysis of Kurdish
attitudes from across different segments of Kurdish society,
including the elite, the business and professional classes, women
and youth activists. It is an intimate portrait of how Kurds today
are dealing with the challenges and difficulties of political
representation.
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