This book critically evaluates the rise of the far-right in Greece, detailing the legal context in which to understand both the emergence of Golden Dawn, the far-right's largest grouping, and the 2020 court decision, in which it was deemed to be a criminal organisation. Golden Dawn was a political party which, for years, also functioned as a violent subculture movement, with limited to no interference by the state. This book sets out the background to its rise in Greece, tracing its development from the post-Junta era. At the same time, the book provides an assessment of the legal framework within which the far-right has operated, and the legal tools available to tackle it - including criminal law, non-discrimination law, the laws governing political parties and the public order framework, and the country's international and European obligations. Golden Dawn functioned as both a political party and violent entity until its leadership and parliamentary members were found guilty of leading and participating in a criminal organisation. This book demonstrates that the state of impunity in which Golden Dawn's violent hit squads functioned was both a facilitating factor for its rise, and potentially for its demise, as the group potentially felt untouchable. And its attention to how Greek Law has tackled, and failed to tackle, Golden Dawn offers a timely and more generally useful assessment of how legislation, courts and policies can best challenge the far-right. This book will be of interest to those teaching and studying in law and politics, as well as more others, concerned with the rise of the far right and violent organizations, especially in Europe.

Authored by a stellar line-up of top China scholars from the US, Europe, Australia and China. Interdisciplinary in approach, so will appeal to courses on Chinese society, politics and history. Writing style is excellent and the chapters are truly connected due to the bok being co-authored.

By examining the changing political economy in China through detailed studies of the peasantry, workers, middle classes, and the dominant class, this volume reveals the Communist Party of China's (CCP's) impact on social change in China between 1978 and 2021. This book explores in depth the CCP's programme of reform and openness that had a dramatic impact on China's socio-economic trajectory following the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution. It also goes on to chart the acceptance of Market Socialism, highlighting the resulting emergence of a larger middle class, while also appreciating the profound consequences this created for workers and peasants. Additionally, this volume examines the development of the dominant class which remains a defining feature of China's political economy and the Party-state. Providing an in-depth analysis of class as understood by the CCP in conjunction with sociological interpretations of socio-economic and socio-political change, this study will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese Politics, Chinese History, Asian Politics, and Asian studies.

The United States has become increasingly polarized, although the concept of a two-party system is not new. This book traces the major parties' utter dominance--of the highest elected positions all the way down to "nonpartisan" political offices across the U.S.--from the founding of the Constitution through the 2020 presidential election. Even before the founding of the "modern" Republican Party in 1854 and the next 168-year era of Democratic-GOP dominance, the early decades of American nationhood were ruled in a similar manner by the two major parties of the day. This book is a comprehensive, fast-paced analysis of how the two-party system has grown to be such an affront to the ideals of the Founding Fathers and of the numerous Americans today who appear to accept it as a fact of life.

This book explores the "Turkish paradox" - women's lower representation in local politics than in parliament. By analyzing life stories of 200 female municipal councilors and party representatives, it offers a comprehensive assessment of what makes local politics in Turkey particularly inaccessible to women. It places women's pathways within the cycles of exclusion, starting by political socialization, going through the candidate recruitment process and continuing after the election. The research presented here brings together gender studies and political sociology and offers novel applications of concepts including intersectionality and biographical availability. It covers all major political parties and diverse local configurations in Turkey, and reveals political strategies of women in conservative parties as well as the reasons behind the exceptionally high representation of women within the pro-Kurdish political parties. The book further sheds some light on the intricate relationship between women's political activity and regime change in the context of democratic backsliding.

In this book, Enrico Padoan proposes an original middle-range theory to explain the emergence and the internal organisation of anti-neoliberal populist parties in Latin America and Southern Europe, and the relationships between these parties and the organised working class. Padoan begins by tracing the diverging evolution of the electoral Lefts in Latin America and Southern Europe in the aftermath of economic crises, and during the implementation of austerity measures within many of these nations. A causal typology for interpreting the possible outcomes of the realignments within the electoral Lefts is proposed. Hereafter, the volume features five empirical chapters, four of which focus on the rise of anti-neoliberal populist parties in Bolivia, Argentina, Spain and Italy, while a fifth offers an analysis on four 'shadow cases' in Venezuela, Uruguay, Portugal and Greece. Scholars of Latin America and Comparative Politics will find Anti-Neoliberal Populisms in Comparative Perspective a highly valuable resource, offering a distinctive perspective on the impact of different populisms on party systems and on the challenges that such populisms posed to syndicalism and to traditional left-of-centre parties.

Historians of political history are fascinated by the rise and fall of political parties and, for twentieth-century Britain, most obviously the rise of the Labour Party and the decline of the Liberal Party. What is often overlooked in this political development is the work of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), which was a formative influence in the growth of the political Labour movement and its leaders in the late nineteenth century and the early to mid-twentieth century. The ILP supplied the Labour Party with some of its leading political figures, such as Ramsay MacDonald, and moved the Labour Party along the road of parliamentary socialism. However, divided over the First World War and challenged by the Labour Party becoming socialist in 1918, it had to face the fact that it was no longer the major parliamentary socialist party in Britain. Although it recovered after the First World War, rising to between 37,000 and 55,000 members, it came into conflict with the Labour Party and two Labour governments over their gradualist approach to socialism. This eventually led to its disaffiliation from the Labour Party in 1932 and its subsequent fragmentation into pro-Labour, pro-communist and independent groups. Its new revolutionary policy divided its members, as did the Abyssinian crisis, the Spanish Civil War and the Moscow Show Trials. By the end of the 1930s, seeking to re-affiliate to the Labour Party, it had been reduced to 2,000 to 3,000 members, was a sect rather than a party and had earned Hugh Dalton's description that it was the 'ILP flea'. In the following monograph, Keith Laybourn analyses the dynamic shifts in this history across 25 years. This scholarship will prove foundational for scholars and researchers of modern British history and socialist thought in the twentieth century.

The book reappraises Neil Kinnock's policies, impact, legacy and leadership of the Labour Party 30 years on from his defeat in the 1992 general election. It offers comprehensively fresh perspectives and some first-hand accounts - some friendly, others more critical - from leading academics, journalists, politicians and advisors on various aspects of ideas, policy, elections and party management, including an interview with the man himself as he looks back on his experiences. This timely book will resonate widely with the current challenges to Labour's leadership and the enduring uncertainties on the future of the party. This book will be of key interest to researchers and students in the fields of political studies and contemporary history as well as the interested general reader.

Authored by a stellar line-up of top China scholars from the US, Europe, Australia and China. Interdisciplinary in approach, so will appeal to courses on Chinese society, politics and history. Writing style is excellent and the chapters are truly connected due to the bok being co-authored.

This provocative book addresses the ideological and political crisis of the Western left, comparing it with the problems facing leftist politics in Russia and other countries. The author presents a radical critique of the current state of the Western left which puts discourse above class interest and politics of diversity above politics of social change. The trajectory away from class politics towards feminism, minority rights and the coalition of coalitions led to the destruction of the basic strategic pillars of the movement. Some elements of this broad progressive agenda became mainstream, but in fact this made the crisis of the left even deeper and contributed to the disintegration of the left's identity. The author demonstrates that a simple return to 'the good old times' of classical socialist politics of the industrial age is not possible, suggesting that class politics must be redefined and reinvented through the experience of new radical populism. This book speaks directly to the way the identity politics/class politics divide has been framed within the English-speaking world. It will be of great interest to scholars and students of political science and political sociology, international relations, security studies and global studies, as well as socialist activists.

This book provides a comparative analysis and a systemic categorization of the Populist Radical Left Parties (PRLPs) in Western Europe. Institutional and socio-economic aspects have transformed the political culture of many modern democracies, leading to the creation of radical left-wing parties who, by combining a strongly populist political offer with the historical demands of the traditional left wing, are capable of electoral success. This book analyzes a range of different Populist Radical Left Parties (PRLPs) in Western Europe through in-depth case studies. The author uses statutes, internal documents, programs, election results, membership data, and international political literature combined with interviews with executives and national secretaries to describe and interpret the main features of PRLPs, their paths of formation and political transformation. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of political science and political sociology, media studies and anyone interested in trying to better understand European populism and the distinctions among its different forms.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the state of political institutions, the military establishment and political parties in Pakistan. It provides a nuanced understanding of the practices of disenfranchisement by theocratic governments in the country which has relegated the people to the margins of their society. The volume provides an in-depth account of the political history of Pakistan focusing not only on national politics and foreign policy but also on their congruences with subnational systems of governance, the criminal justice system, bureaucracy, the electoral system and the police. It discusses challenging issues plaguing the country such as the continued dominance of the military, lagging economic development, lack of accountability within political institutions, sectarianism and terrorism. The author dissects and critically examines Pakistan's hegemonic politics and underlines the need for a new social contract based on the principles of inclusiveness and equality. The volume offers fresh perspectives on the multifaceted problems in Pakistan's politics. It will be of great interest to policy practitioners and to academics and students of politics, law and governance, sociology, international relations, comparative politics, Pakistan studies and South Asia studies.

Although party membership has been extensively analysed in the EU Members States from Western and Eastern Europe, there is a gap in systematic data collection and analyses for the other countries in the Balkans and post-Soviet region. This book provides new and innovative insights in the area of party membership research to analyse the evolution of membership organizations in political parties from under-investigated countries. Specifically, it seeks to understand the way in which political parties and the national legislation conceptualize the notion of membership within and across countries. It provides original data and affords a first comprehensive, comparative study of party members in the EU neighbouring countries, which resonate particular interest because some of them occupy the "precarious middle ground between a full-fledge democracy and outright dictatorship". In light of these relevant observations, this systematic analysis of membership evolutions in democratizing countries brings valuable insights for the study of party politics in general. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties and party systems, party organisation and elections, post-Soviet and East European politics and more broadly to democratization studies and comparative politics.

The volume sheds light on the backsliding process of Turkish democratization from the early 2010's until 2018. In addition to historical contextualization, the book analyzes data collected through a nationally representative survey of Turkish voters during the 2018 elections and data available by the Supreme Election Board (YSK) in a pre-and post-election panel design. A more centralized administration of elections that are directly under the control of the central government brought reliability of election results as well as the free and fair nature of the elections in question. Mobilization efforts of the parties, as well as the varying degree of influence of the economy, appear to have simultaneously influential over the vote choices. Yet another factor of potency in shaping the vote choices was the longer-term effects of ideology, conservative values, and hence the party identification. Through the 2018 elections in Turkey, the book provides an excellent glimpse into the dynamics of Turkish politics, society and culture. Targeting students and scholars of Middle Eastern and North African politics, the book is a key resource for any readers interested in the political developments of Turkey, comparative politics, and voting behavior.

This book analyses the evolution of key Islamist movements and parties in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. It offers a novel and exhaustive study of the evolution of Islamists as shaped by the interplay of domestic, regional, and international factors. Providing an in-depth, theoretically grounded and empirically rich study of political Islam, the volume explores how the overly under-appreciated interaction of domestic, regional and international factors impacts the development of contemporary Islamist actors. By tracing how they adapt and resist to challenging environments within and beyond national boundaries, it charts and explains many of the critical changes and continuities in their organisational set-up, policy choices, ideological leanings, and narratives. Through an inside-out perspective and actor-centered approach, this book aims to overcome the 'compartmentalisation' of the domestic and international spheres as well as the 'obsession' with moderation for Islamists. Specifically, the book chapters address how Islamist actors (re)interpret external events, norms, ideas, and practices from abroad in the light of the constraints and opportunities of their respective domestic environments. At the crossroads of comparative politics, international relations and area studies, it is a key resource for practitioners and scholars interested in party politics, social movements, political Islam and North Africa. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Contemporary Politics.

Anthony Crosland bequeathed a significant intellectual legacy to the Labour Party. In this timely book, Patrick Diamond considers a wide range of Crosland's writings on the economy and politics, relating his ideas on egalitarian social democracy, electoral strategy, the European question, and the importance of progressive liberalism on the British centre-left. Written in a clear and persuasive way, it will appeal to academics, students, activists, Labour Party members and associated think tanks,

This book examines the process of presidentialisation of political parties in the Western Balkans. The Western Balkan countries deserve to be analysed in a comparative perspective due to their distinctive features in terms of processes of democratization, forms of government and institutional assets, the presence of social cleavages (religious, linguistic, ethnic), and, of course, the nature of political parties which differs from other European cases, especially in terms of origins, organization and structure. However, Western Balkan political parties do show certain similarities with other West European cases where power is centralised and held by the parties' leadership. The book ultimately attempts to test whether and to what extent the influence of institutional variables affects the level of presidentialisation of political parties, also considering the parties' organization features.

This book examines the content of MPs' activities through which parliamentarians generate representative claims. Challenging the idea that studying individual representation is a futile exercise, this book shows that looking at the opinions and behavioural patterns of parliamentarians can shed light on some important questions: What are the interests represented in parliament? How important are electoral incentives in shaping the role of representatives? What is the impact of parliamentarians' personal characteristics? Focussing on the role played by Italian members of the Chamber of Deputies across a period of more than 20 years, the study applies role analysis to connect the normative debates on political representation to empirical studies and is underpinned by a rich data set of parliamentary activities and surveys on parliamentarians' attitudes and opinions. The book will be of key interest to scholars and students of legislative studies, European politics, Italian studies/politics, and more broadly to comparative politics.

The book reappraises Neil Kinnock's policies, impact, legacy and leadership of the Labour Party 30 years on from his defeat in the 1992 general election. It offers comprehensively fresh perspectives and some first-hand accounts - some friendly, others more critical - from leading academics, journalists, politicians and advisors on various aspects of ideas, policy, elections and party management, including an interview with the man himself as he looks back on his experiences. This timely book will resonate widely with the current challenges to Labour's leadership and the enduring uncertainties on the future of the party. This book will be of key interest to researchers and students in the fields of political studies and contemporary history as well as the interested general reader.

No one could have predicted that a peaceful sit-in to counter government plans to raze Istanbul's Gezi park would escalate into a country-wide protest movement, arguably the most serious political crisis Turkey, a country often hailed as a 'model' in the region, has faced in the last ten years.
The protests left 8 dead, more than 8,000 wounded, and the country deeply polarized. Much ink has been spilled since June 2013 to explain the Gezi protests in the media, most of it based on hasty analogies and banal platitudes, referring to a 'Turkish spring'. Yet no academic analyses of the protests have been published so far and it is in this context that this collection of essays, the first academic book on the topic in English, is both timely and important.
This collection offers a preliminary analysis of the Gezi protests and addresses the following key questions: 'How can we account for the protests?' 'Who were the protesters?' 'Why did the Justice and Development Party government choose to suppress the protests instead of meeting the demands of the protesters?' and 'Were Gezi protests in any way connected to protest movements in other parts of the world?'

"The Transformation of Urban Liberalism" re-evaluates the dramatic and turbulent political decade following the 'Third Reform Act', and questions whether the Liberal Party's political heartlands - the urban boroughs - really were in decline. In contrast to some recent studies, it does not see electoral reform, the Irish Home Rule crisis and the challenge of socialism as representing a fundamental threat to the integrity of the party. Instead this book illustrates, using parallel case studies, how the party gradually began to transform into a social democratic organisation through a re-evaluation of its role and policy direction. This process was not one directed from the centre - despite the important personalities of Gladstone and Rosebery - but rather one heavily influenced by 'grass roots politics'. Consequently, it suggests that late Victorian politics was more democratic and open than sometimes thought, with leading urban politicians forced to respond to the demands of party activists. Changes in the structure of urban rule produced new policy outcomes and brought new collectivist forms of New Liberalism onto the political agenda. Thus, it is argued that without the political transformations of the decade 1885-1895, the radical liberal governments of the Edwardian era would not have been possible.

This book examines the working procedures of parliamentary party groups within specialised committees - the backstage but primary means for MPs to influence policy. It explains which MPs specialise in particular policy areas, how they make policy choices in committees, and, subsequently, how these individual decisions are aggregated and 'unified' within and via parliamentary party groups. In doing so, the book expertly reveals the internal working procedures of parliaments and the role of individual MPs vis-a-vis the parliamentary party group leadership. Based on an analysis of more than 3,000 committee assignments and over 100 in-depth interviews with MPs, it shows that individual experts in committees have a central role and decision-making power which is more varied and decentralised from the leadership than commonly assumed. It demonstrates that most policy decisions are prepared bottom-up rather than dictated top-down and that parliamentary party groups are not strictly hierarchical organisations dominated by elites. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of legislative and parliamentary studies, representative democracy, comparative politics, and journalists and practitioners within parliaments.

When it was originally published in 1984, Militant was widely acclaimed as a masterly work of investigative journalism. Although the rise of Jeremy Corbyn is to be attributed to more than hard-left entrism, to some within the party, Crick's book must seem like a lesson from history.Militant was a secret Trotskyite organisation that consistently denied being a party, though at its peak in the mid-1980s it could boast around 8,000 members, all of whom also belonged to the Labour Party. Militant operated clandestinely inside the Labour Party, edging out moderates at grass-roots level and recruiting people to its own ranks. Whilst eventually most of its leaders were expelled, it caused damaging rifts within Labour. Crick's book explores the origins, organisation and aims of Militant. It also explores the famous boss politics of Derek Hatton and Militant in Liverpool, and the party hierarchy's determined and ultimately successful attempts to squash the tendency.An important historical document, it is today seen as a field guide to how hard-left factions can infiltrate the Labour party, with some in the centre of the party allegedly urging its supporters to treat the long unavailable book as a 'war manual'.

By examining the changing political economy in China through detailed studies of the peasantry, workers, middle classes, and the dominant class, this volume reveals the Communist Party of China's (CCP's) impact on social change in China between 1978 and 2021. This book explores in depth the CCP's programme of reform and openness that had a dramatic impact on China's socio-economic trajectory following the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution. It also goes on to chart the acceptance of Market Socialism, highlighting the resulting emergence of a larger middle class, while also appreciating the profound consequences this created for workers and peasants. Additionally, this volume examines the development of the dominant class which remains a defining feature of China's political economy and the Party-state. Providing an in-depth analysis of class as understood by the CCP in conjunction with sociological interpretations of socio-economic and socio-political change, this study will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese Politics, Chinese History, Asian Politics, and Asian studies.