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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political parties
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.
"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"
The world is currently witnessing the emergence of a new context
for education, labor, and transformative social movements. Global
flows of people, capital, and energy increasingly define the world
we live in. The multinational corporation, with its pursuit of
ever-cheaper sources of labor and materials and its disregard for
human life, is the dominant form of economic organization, where
capital can cross borders, but people can't. Affirmative action,
democracy, and human rights are moving in from the margins to
challenge capitalist priorities of "efficiency", i.e. exploitation.
In some places, the representatives of popular movements are
actually taking the reins of state power. Across the globe new
progressive movements are emerging to bridge national identities
and boundaries, in solidarity with transnational class, gender, and
ethnic struggles. At this juncture, educators have a key role to
play. The ideology of market competition has become more entrenched
in schools, even as opportunities for skilled employment diminish.
We must rethink the relationship between schooling and labor,
developing transnational pedagogies that draw upon the myriad
social struggles shaping students' lives and communities. Critical
educators need to connect with other social movements to put a
radically democratic agenda, based on the principles of equity,
access, and emancipation, at the center of educational praxis. Many
countries in Latin America like in other continents are developing
new alternatives for the reconstruction of social projects; these
emerging sources of hope are the central focus of this book. Major
historical change always starts with people's social movement.
Democracy can be one of the best political and social systems in
the world but for it to work entails the sustainable participation
of citizens. Above all, it requires that people be informed and
critically educated since the quality of democracy depends on
quality of education. There are 2 kinds of power: money and people.
If people exercise their agency, they can be more powerful than
money. There are some organizing principles of social movements,
as: "don't do for others what they should do for themselves." Saul
Alinsky wrote: Rules for Radicals: A pragmatic primer for realistic
radicals; Mary Rogers: Cold Anger: A story of faith and power
politics; Michael Gecan: Going Public: An organizer's guide to
citizen action; and Ernesto Cortez's, Industrial Area Foundation,
are all great sources for organized activism that do work. I put
some of these principles to the test and they produced positive
results, I was a founder and president of a union at my university
and I lived my whole life as an activist and learned that, we can
do more together than alone. Now we also have a new digital war
with the Cambridge Analitica and Breitbart's fake news
manipulation; however, we also have social-justice hacktivism to
counter act it, as well as other democratic social media venues
that critical thinkers and activist use. The chapters in this book
demonstrate the importance of widening and diversifying social
movements, at the same time, emphasizes the need to build cohesive
alliances among all the different fronts. What some people think is
"impossible" can become a transformed reality, for those who dare
attempt changing the world as global citizens.
In this book, Anthony Williams investigates the history of
Christian Socialist thought in Britain from the late nineteenth to
mid-twentieth century. Through analysis of the writings of ten key
Christian Socialists from the period, Williams reframes the
ideology of Christian Socialism as a coherent and influential body
of political thought - moving the study of Christian Socialism away
from historical narratives and towards political ideology. The book
sheds new light on a key period in British political development,
in particular Williams demonstrates how the growth of the Christian
Socialist movement exercised a profound impact on the formation of
the British Labour party, which would go on to radically change
20th century politics in Britain.
For the first eighteen months of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, Labour
MPs were in open revolt. The party seemed to be heading back to the
early 1980s, when old-school Marxists tried and failed to take over
the party, at a shocking electoral cost. The snap general election
called by Theresa May for 8 June 2017 looked set to consign Labour
to the history books. But the best-laid plans of mice and men...
How long can the uneasy peace between moderate, anti-Corbyn MPs and
the leader's loyal grassroots activists last? What does Jeremy
Corbyn's Labour Party have in common with the Labour Party of
Attlee, Wilson and Blair? Is there even a future for either version
of `democratic socialism' in the twenty-first century? Or is the
Labour Party, as generations of voters have known it, finally
coming to the end of its useful life? The seeds of Labour's
travails and its hostile takeover by the hard left were sown years
earlier, during the turbulent, chaotic last years of the Labour
government. In Ten Years in the Death of the Labour Party,
columnist and former Labour MP Tom Harris turns the spotlight on
the decisions that doomed the party's fortunes and the people who
made them.
The American vice presidency, as the saying goes, 'is not worth a
bucket of warm spit.' Yet vice presidential candidates, many people
believe, can make all the difference in winning-or losing-a
presidential election. Is that true, though? Did Sarah Palin, for
example, sink John McCain's campaign in 2008? Did Joe Biden help
Barack Obama win? Do running mates actually matter? In the first
book to put this question to a rigorous test, Christopher J. Devine
and Kyle C. Kopko draw upon an unprecedented range of empirical
data to reveal how, and how much, running mates influence voting in
presidential elections. Building on their previous work in The VP
Advantage and evidence from over 200 statistical models spanning
the 1952 to 2016 presidential elections, the authors analyze three
pathways by which running mates might influence vote choice. First,
of course, they test for direct effects, or whether evaluations of
the running mate influence vote choice among voters in general.
Next, they test for targeted effects-if, that is, running mates win
votes among key subsets of voters who share their gender, religion,
ideology, or geographic identity. Finally, the authors examine
indirect effects-that is, whether running mates shape perceptions
of the presidential candidate who selected them, which in turn
influence vote choice. Here, in this last category, is where we see
running mates most clearly influencing presidential
voting-especially when it comes to their qualifications for holding
office and taking over as president, if necessary. Picking a
running mate from a key voting bloc probably won't make a
difference, the authors conclude. But picking an experienced,
well-qualified running mate will make the presidential candidate
look better to voters---and win some votes. With its wealth of data
and expert analysis, this finely crafted study, the most
comprehensive to date, finally provides clear answers to one of the
most enduring questions in presidential politics: can the running
mate make a difference in this election?
The Research Handbook on Visual Politics focuses on key theories
and methodologies for better understanding visual political
communication. It also concentrates on the depictions of power
within politics, taking a historical and longitudinal approach to
the topic of placing visuals within a wider framework of political
understanding. The Handbook provides an introduction to the
theoretical underpinning of the study of visual politics as well as
an overview of the current thinking and research traditions in the
field of visual politics. The impressive selection of contributors
explore all types of media, including studies of the tools utilised
for visual politics such as social media, art and photography,
featuring the latest platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. The
editors also include discussions of visual politics covering a
range of nations and political systems while placing current
practices in visual politics within their historical context.
Offering a rich range of studies exploring differing practices
within their contexts to highlight current studies and support the
development of future research, this Research Handbook is designed
for researchers and students interested in the broad field of
politics and the subfields of political communication, persuasion,
propaganda and rhetoric.
In the 1850s, a startling new political party appeared on the
American scene. Both its members and its critics called the new
party by various names, but to most it was known as the Know
Nothing Party. It reignited political fires over nativism and
anti-immigration sentiments. At a time of political uncertainty,
with the Whig party on the verge of collapse, the Know Nothings
seemed destined to replace them and perhaps become a political
fixture. Historian Marius M. Carriere Jr. tracks the rise and fall
of the Know Nothing movement in Louisiana, outlining not only the
history of the party as it is usually known, but also explaining
how the party's unique permeation in Louisiana contrasted with the
Know Nothings' expansion nationally and elsewhere in the South. For
example, many Roman Catholics in the state joined the Know
Nothings, even though the party was nationally known as
anti-Catholic. While historians have largely concentrated on the
Know Nothings' success in the North, Carriere furnishes a new
context for the evolution of a national political movement at odds
with its Louisiana constituents. Through statistics on various
elections and demographics of Louisiana politicians, Carriere forms
a detailed account of Louisiana's Know Nothing Party. The national
and rapidly changing Louisiana political landscape yielded
surprising, credible leverage for the Know Nothing movement.
Slavery, Carriere argues, also played a crucial difference between
southern and northern Know Nothing ideals. Carriere delineates the
eventual downfall of the Know Nothing Party, while offering new
perspectives on a nativist movement, which has appeared once again
in a changing, divided country.
When Scotland voted no to independence, it was hailed as a victory
for the unique Better Together alliance, a triumph of cross-party
collaboration, a coup for Westminster.But the unionist relief
proved to be premature.Despite bitter referendum defeat, the
Scottish National Party went on to conjure stunning general
election success, almost eviscerating their rivals with an
overwhelming surge of public support.In this compelling insider
account, Joe Pike goes behind the battle lines to uncover the
secrets of the much-maligned No campaign, dubbed 'Project Fear'.
Drawing on exclusive interviews with over sixty sources at the
heart of the action, he reveals the tears, the tantrums and the
tactical failings that saw a double-digit poll lead reduced to a
nail-biting finale, with victory eventually coming at a
catastrophic cost to the Labour Party.Now, as the future of the
union looks as uncertain as ever, this new, updated edition
explores the striking parallels between the Scottish and EU
referendums, and asks: where now for Scotland in the wake of a
political landslide?
Ideology is a ubiquitous, continuously innovating dimension of
human experience, but its character and impact are notoriously
difficult to pinpoint within political and social life. Political
Ideology in Parties, Policy, and Civil Society demonstrates that
the reach and significance of political ideology can be most
effectively understood by employing a multidisciplinary approach.
Offering analyses that are simultaneously empirical and
interpretive - in fields as diverse as development assistance
policy and game theory - the contributors to this volume reveal
ideology's penetration in varied spheres, including government
activity, party competition, agricultural and working-class
communities, and academic life.
Ideology and Organization in Indian Politics examines the immense
changes that have occurred in Indian politics over the past decade
and its impact on the Indian National Congress. The impact is most
apparent in the changing fortunes of the Congress party, which
suffered two major defeats in 2014 and 2019 elections, bringing the
party's crisis to the front and centre of public debate. This book
seeks to understand the reasons for these enormous changes by
looking first at the underlying conditions that led to the decline
of the Congress and, second, the challenges' both external and
internal' confronting the Congress and, while doing so, estimating
its impact on Indian politics and on the Congress. More
specifically, it looks at how important ideological debates
provoked by the rise of majoritarianism, the Gujarat model,
hypernationalism, the secular retreat, and the curbs and
restrictions on the opposition influenced Congress. Exploring
ideological shifts and organizational limits that shaped the
decline of the Congress makes a compelling case for the
significance of the Congress story in understanding the larger
political transformation underway in India. The argument centers on
the Congress party, but comparatively speaking, it has relevance
for the experience of centrist and centre-left parties in other
countries, which too suffered a decline in the context of the
upsurge of populist nationalism and right-wing politics in the past
few years. Analysis of political change in India in the past decade
affords insights into the processes of transformation and
polarization that grounded the Congress party and centrist parties
in other countries as well.
Differing moral views are dividing the country and polarizing the
left and the right more than ever before. This book offers unique
solutions to improve communication and understanding between the
two factions to fix our fractured political system. Morality is at
the heart of political contention in American society.
Unfortunately, our polarized belief systems severely inhibit the
achievement of bipartisan compromises. A Battlefield of Values:
America's Left, Right, and Endangered Center provides a candid but
nonjudgmental examination of what people think and believe-and how
this informs our divisions over core values. By addressing how
individuals believe rather than how they vote, the book illuminates
why 21st-century America is so conflicted politically and
religiously; exposes what matters most to those on the right and
left of the political, religious, and cultural spectrum; explains
why the members of the endangered center in American life-the
moderates-are struggling to make sense of the great divide between
conflicting ideologies; and predicts how a degree of reconciliation
and detente might be possible in the future. Authors Stephen
Burgard and Benjamin J. Hubbard build a powerful case for how
authentic communication between political factions is integral to
bettering our society as a whole. Along the way, they illustrate
the impact of religion and media on American belief systems and
also explore the inability of news media to serve as mediators of
this dilemma. This work will fascinate lay readers seeking
perspective on our current political stalemate as well as serve
college students taking courses in political science,
communications, journalism, anthropology, or religious studies.
Provides a unique analysis that shows how our seemingly
irreconcilable differences can be turned into assets for
transforming the United States into a better country Offers
informed perspectives of American conflict from authors with more
than 50 years of experience combined in their respective fields
Explores a future using religion, technology, and science to mend
distrust and tune up our political system Presents information and
concepts appropriate for an academic lesson plan or for any
civics-savvy reader
This book examines the political and economic philosophy of Chief
Jeremiah Oyeniyi Obafemi Awolowo and his concepts of democratic
socialism (Liberal Democratic Socialism). It studies how Chief
Awolowo and his political parties, first the Action Group (AG)
1951-1966 and later the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) 1978-1983,
acted in various Nigerian political settings. Chief Awolowo was a
principled man, who by a Spartan self-discipline and understanding
of himself, his accomplishments, failures and successes, was a
fearless leader. He has set an example of leadership for a new
generation of Nigerian politicians. He was not only a brilliant
politician, but a highly cerebral thinker, statesman, dedicated
manager, brilliant political economist, a Social Democrat, and a
committed federalist. From all accounts, Chief Awolowo knew the
worst and the best, laughter and sorrow, vilification and
veneration, tribulations and triumphs, poverty and prosperity,
failures and successes in life.
While significant attention in political science is devoted to
national level elections, a comprehensive look at state level
political dynamics in the United States is so far sorely missing,
and state level electoral developments and shifts are treated as
mere reflections of national-level dynamics and patterns. This book
argues that this significantly impacts our ability to understand
macro-level electoral shifts in the United States in general. The
book analyzes gubernatorial, congressional, and presidential
election results in the state of Alabama from 1945 through 2020.
Comprehensive maps of county-level partisan shifts over time and
comparisons between trends for different offices make it possible
to isolate pivotal elections and compare state-level and national
trends over time. When and where did Alabama's electorate break
with the Democratic Party, and were these breaks uniform across the
state? Which counties shifted the most over time, and was this
shift gradual or characterized by change elections? Comprehensive
electoral data, on the county- and precinct-level, make it possible
to answer these questions and place state-level electoral behavior
in its regional and national context. Detailed county level
demographic and economic data is used to provide local context for
electoral patterns, shifts, and continuities.
Combining primary sources with expert commentary, this timely book
probes critical moments in U.S. presidential elections in the last
20th- and early 21st-centuries, empowering readers to better
understand and analyze the electoral process. Presidential
Campaigns: Documents Decoded illuminates both the high stakes of a
presidential campaign and the gaffes, controversies, and excesses
that often influence the outcome. With a view to enabling readers
to develop skills essential to political literacy, the book
examines crisis points in modern presidential elections from the
early 1950s through the late 2000s. Chronologically organized, the
study focuses on key events pertinent to each election. It provides
an original account of the event, such as a debate transcript or
news report, as well as a discussion detailing how the issue
emerged and why it was important. This unique and engaging approach
enables students to experience the actual source material as voters
might have. At the same time, it shows them how an expert views the
material, facilitating a deeper understanding of the narratives
every presidential campaign constructs around its candidates, its
party, and its opponents. Primary sources such as speeches,
advertisements, candidate platforms, press coverage, internal
campaign documents, and more are presented side by side with
accessibly written, expert commentary A contextualizing
introductory essay explains the logic behind the selection of
documents and pinpoints narratives that can be traced through the
collection Novel stories about many behind-the-scenes events will
engage reader interest Photos, quotes, artwork, slogans, commercial
stills, and other illustrative campaign media help bring history
alive
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