The Iranian left is of great historical significance and a trend of direct relevance to the current situation in Iran and to the evolution of the struggle between 'reformers' and 'conservatives'. Even though the left has never held power in Iran, its impact on the political, intellectual and cultural development of modern Iran has been profound. This book's authors undertake a fundamental reexamination and reappraisal of the phenomenon of leftist activism in Iran, interpreted in the broadest sense, throughout the period of its existence up to and including the present. "Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran" brings together contrasting views about the balance sheet of a century of leftism in Iran.

Many studies of the origins of National Socialism claim that the "volkisch" and proto-Nazi movement arose largely as a reaction to the materialistic ideas of nineteenth-century science and especially to the naturalistic philosophy of Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League. Using hitherto unexplored material, Daniel Gasman calls this generalization into question. Arguing that the importance of science has been relatively neglected in accounts of the intellectual origins of Nazism, he attempts to show that Haeckel's "scientific" Darwinism, and his movement, the German Monist League, were proto-Nazi in character. Contrary to popular belief, Haeckel's type of social Darwinism actually played a critical role in the formation of National Socialist ideology. In his new introduction, Gasman notes that recent research goes far to confirm Haeckel's role as an ideological progenitor of fascist ideology. This is true not only for Germany, but also for the birth of fascist thought in Italy and France. In general, Gasman claims, the history of science plainly reveals how Haeckel's social Darwinism nourished the roots of fascism no less than avant-garde modernism. When "The Scientific Origins of National Socialism" initially appeared, the "Times Literary Supplement" called it a "very well-argued thesis... that is completely successful... and leaves the reader to extract his own moral lessons." "Medical History," in its review of "The Scientific Origins of National Socialism," said, "His book is essential for understanding modern Germany. It has a general message derived from the events in Germany, where scientific data were permitted to take on a mystical signficiance... with ghastly consequences." Bruce Chatwin, in the "New York Review of Books," called the book "brilliant." Now available in paperback, with a new introduction by the author, this seminal work will be of interest to intellectual historians, as well as those interested in twentieth-century Europe.

Where other books are either highly partisan dismissals or appreciations of the Third Way, or dull sociological accounts, this book gets behind the cliches in order to show just what is left of Labour party ideology and what the future may hold. New Labour has changed the face of Britain. Culture, class, education, health, the arts, leisure, the economy have all seen seismic shifts since the 1997 election that raised Blair to power. The Labour that rules has distanced itself from the failed Labour of the 70s and 80s, but the core remains. Labour remains gripped by its own past - unable and unwilling to shed its ties to the old Labour party, but determined to avoid the mistakes of which lead to four electoral defeats between 1979 and 1992. Cronin covers the full history of the party from its post war triumph through decades of shambolic leadership against ruthless and organised opposition to the resurgent New Labour of the 90s that finally took Britain into the new millennium.

The Industrial Reorganisation Corporation was created by a Labour Government in 1966 and dissolved by the incoming Conservative Government in 1971. It might have faded into oblivion had it not been for the controversy generated by its highly unusual constitution which gave control of public spending to private sector industrialists and bankers. The IRC used both its influence and its cash to direct or even to thwart market forces in the 'national interest'. It was involved in the key industrial issues of the time, such as the mergers of GEC-AEI-English Electric and the formation of British Leyland. It defeated Rank in its bid to take over Cambridge Instruments, and stopped the Swedish SKF from buying the UK's leading ball-bearing manufacturer. It also moved towards a development bank role, and its small executive team went on to play further leading roles in UK business. This book, first published in 1983, provides the first comprehensive analysis of the IRC.

How does New Labour compare with old Labour? What can we learn about the current Government by looking at its predecessor? How does New Labour interpret the record of old Labour in power?
We are constantly told that New Labour forms an historic departure from the traditions of the Labour Party. This book, written by a distinguished selection of academics and commentators, provides the most detailed comparison yet of old and new Labour in power. It is also the first to offer a comprehensive analysis of the last Labour Government before the rise of Thatcher and the re-emergence of the Labour Party under Tony Blair's leadership. It reveals much about the history of the Labour Party as well as providing a much-needed context from which to judge the current government.
Contributors include: Vernon Bogdanor, Raymond Plant, Jim Tomlinson, Robert Taylor, Polly Toynbee, David Walker, Roy Lowe, John W Young, Ann Lane, Chris Ballinger, Philip Norton, Kevin Theakston, Ed Gouge, Dilys M Hill, Brendan O'Leary, Eric Shaw, Steven Fielding, Stuart Holland, Kenneth O Morgan, Peter Riddell, Robert Skidelsky and Dennis Kavanagh. They compare all the key aspects of the political thought and policy of the Wilson-Callaghan Government of 1979 with the Blair Government making this book essential reading for all of those interested in how Labour, both past and present, governs.

How does New Labour compare with old Labour? What can we learn about the current Government by looking at its predecessor? How does New Labour interpret the record of old Labour in power?
We are constantly told that New Labour forms an historic departure from the traditions of the Labour Party. This book, written by a distinguished selection of academics and commentators, provides the most detailed comparison yet of old and new Labour in power. It is also the first to offer a comprehensive analysis of the last Labour Government before the rise of Thatcher and the re-emergence of the Labour Party under Tony Blair's leadership. It reveals much about the history of the Labour Party as well as providing a much-needed context from which to judge the current government.
Contributors include: Vernon Bogdanor, Raymond Plant, Jim Tomlinson, Robert Taylor, Polly Toynbee, David Walker, Roy Lowe, John W Young, Ann Lane, Chris Ballinger, Philip Norton, Kevin Theakston, Ed Gouge, Dilys M Hill, Brendan O'Leary, Eric Shaw, Steven Fielding, Stuart Holland, Kenneth O Morgan, Peter Riddell, Robert Skidelsky and Dennis Kavanagh. They compare all the key aspects of the political thought and policy of the Wilson-Callaghan Government of 1979 with the Blair Government making this book essential reading for all of those interested in how Labour, both past and present, governs.

Contents:
1. Social Democracy in Europe: Renewal or Retreat? Martin Powell
2. Policy Changes of European Social Democrats, 1945-1998 Andrea Volkens
3. Models of Citizenship and Social Democratic Policies Dietmar Braun and Oliver Giraud
4. Social Policy in Belgium and the Netherlands: Third Way or Not? Renaat Hoop
5. The Portuguese Socialists and the Third Way Marina Costa Lobo and Pedro C. Magalhaes
6. Turning Ideas into Policies: Implementing Modern Social-Democratic Thinking in Germany's Pension Policy Martin Hering
7. The Social and Employment Policies of the Jospin Government Ben Clift
8. The Third Way in Welfare State Reform? Social Democratic Pension Politics in Germany and Sweden Karen Anderson and Traute Meyer
9. Why do Social Democratic Parties Change Employment Policy Positions? A Comparison of Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom Monika Feigl-Heihs
10. From 'Eurokeynesianism' to the 'Third Way'. The Party of European Socialists (PES) and European Employment Policies
11. Social Democratic Party Policies in Europe: Towards a Third Way? Giuliano Bonoli

Xiang explains the nature and depth of the legitimacy crisis facing the government of China, and why it is so frequently misunderstood in the West. Arguing that it is more helpful to understand the quest for legitimacy in China as an eternally dynamic process, rather than to seek resolutions in constitutionalism, Xiang examines the understanding of legitimacy in Chinese political philosophy. He posits that the current crisis is a consequence of the incompatibility of Confucian Republicanism and Soviet-inspired Bolshevism. The discourse on Chinese political reform tends to polarize, between total westernization on the one hand, or the rejection of western influence in all forms on the other. Xiang points to a third solution - meeting western democratic theories halfway, avoiding another round of violent revolution. This book provides valuable insights for scholars and students of China's politics and political history.

During the late 1940s the newly created CIA, in a loose alliance with anti-communist intellectuals and trade unionists, launched a massive, clandestine effort to win the Cold War allegiance of the European left. Drawing on numerous personal interviews and document collections on both sides of the Atlantic, this book examines in detail the origins of the CIA's covert campaign and assesses it's impact on the US's principal Cold War ally, Britain, focusing particularly on attempts to combat communist penetration of British trade unions, stimulate support within the Labour party for key American strategic aims, such as European union, and influence the politics of Bloomsbury literati. The results of this secret intervention were complex and far-reaching. CIA support for such ventures as the Congress for Cultural Freedom and its London-based magazine, Encounter, subtly transformed the political culture of the British left, making it more Atlanticist and less socialist. In other ways, however, the hidden hand of American intelligence failed to control its British assets, whose behaviour often frustrated their secretive patrons in Washington. For that matter, not even the CIA's agen

Based on a series of controlled comparisons among regimes and states, Valerie Bunce's book argues that two factors account for the remarkable collapse of the socialist dictatorships in Europe from 1989-1992: the institutional design of socialism as a regime, a state and a bloc, and the rapid expansion during the 1980s of opportunities for domestic and international change. Together, these two factors explain not just why socialist regimes and states ended, but also why the process was peaceful in some cases and violent in others.

Building a New China in Cinema introduces English readers for the first time to one of the most exciting left-wing cinema traditions in the world. This unique book explores the history, ideology, and aesthetics of China's left-wing cinema movement, a quixotic film culture that was as political as commercial, as militant as sensationalist. Originating in the 1930s, it marked the first systematic intellectual involvement in Chinese cinema. In this era of turmoil and idealism, the movement's films were characterized by fantasies of heroism intertwined with the inescapable spell of impotency, thus exposing the contradictions of the filmmakers' underlying ideology as their political and artistic agendas alternately fought against or catered to the taste and viewing habits of a popular audience. Political cinema became a commercially successful industry, resulting in a film culture that has never been replicated. Drawing on detailed archival research, Pang demonstrates that this cinema movement was a product of the era's social, economic, and political discourses. The author offers a close analysis of many rarely seen films, richly illustrated with over eighty stills collected from the Beijing Film Archive. With its original conceptual approach and rich use of primary sources, this book will be of interest not only to scholars and fans of Chinese cinema but to those who study the relationship between cinema and modernity.

This work on the decline of French radicalism was conceived after the fall of the Berlin Wall as an essay on the decline and decay of the revolutionary idea in European politics. The theme provided an organizing principle for Roger Kaplan's analysis of the evolution of the French left in the wake of events for which it was politically and intellectually unprepared. Kaplan provides a basis for understanding the performance of a French socialist regime in power, one more uncertain of its mission than at any other time in its history. The paradox of French radicalism is that when it was out of office, it was quite certain about its mission. When it attained power, it lost its sense of mission, and hence its confidence as to the proper uses of power.
"Conservative Socialism" for Kaplan is not simply an invention of the Mitterand Era, but an ideology rooted in French history. Unwilling or unable to embrace the social democratic idea of the "third way," French socialism became a force to conserve particularism in French culture and nationalism in its foreign policies. While socialism had long become a force to inhibit the rise of capitalism and freedom in France, the decline of its radicalism was inevitable. This is because in a country as conservative as France it was necessary for socialists and their assorted allies, to project a conservative image to be trusted. In France, the Left has abandoned the idea of radicalism so as to exercise power.
Kaplan's unique and imaginative reading of French political history will have a profound effect on how that nation is perceived in this new epoch of the European Union. He argues persuasively and fairly that the French Left is alive if not well. The Left rose to power in France despite its policy failures, embarrassments, because it transcended the "end" to which its political dogma would have consigned it. Conservative Socialism will have a stunning impact on how political theorists view political developments in France and Europe.
Roger F.S. Kaplan is a journalist and magazine editor currently writing on political and literary subjects for a variety of publications, including the "Atlantic Monthly," the "New Republic," and "Commentary." He has served in the policy office of the Board of International Broadcasting (the editorial writing bureau attached to the Voice of America, 1999-2000) as director of publications for Freedom House (1992-1997) where he edited "Freedom Review." and as a consultant for the International Council for Human Rights Policy in Geneva.
"Roger Kaplan is one of our keenest observers of French politics and deserves to be better known. His book is a meticulous study of the French left during the Mitterrand years, but it is also a contribution to our understanding of how Europeans in general are coping--ideologically and practically--with the post-Cold War world. Though a work of history, this is a vital and timely book for anyone concerned with contemporary politics."--Mark Lilla, University of Chicago
"Roger Kaplan's book, "Conservative Socialism" is one of the best analysis I ever read about the evolution of the French left and even the European Left since 1980."--Jean-Francois Revel
"Roger Kaplan offers a penetrating, incisive, and extremely well informed look into the arcane complexities of French Socialism, which has been struggling to unite an ideology rooted in the French revolutionary tradition with the issues posed by guiding a country with a large-scale capitalist economy. Kaplan knows France from the inside, and his book is a fascinating read for anyone concerned with the social-political history of the last half-century."--Joseph Frank

Emergency Politics in the Third Wave of Democracy aims to make an important contribution to the study of emergency politics by offering an up-to-date study of how it works in practice. Specifically, it studies the uses given to the "regime of exception" mechanism in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru in the first decade of the 21st century and analyzes potential incompatibilities with the two pillars of democratic governability: efficiency and legitimacy. This book offers a thorough review of existing literature on emergency politics, offering conceptual clarification, identifying three types or paradigms of emergency politics (repressive, administrative, and disaster) and pointing to regimes of exception as a useful route to their study. It also provides an overview of emergency politics in Latin America throughout history, pointing to the predominance of regimes of exception and the repressive paradigm. The book describes the continuity of the repressive paradigm in Peruvian emergency politics to deal with both social protest and the apparent threat of organized crime and terrorism, as well as how Bolivia has shifted from a repressive to a disaster paradigm in the face of pressure to deal with climate change. It also analyzes the predominance of an administrative paradigm in Ecuadorian emergency politics in the context of weak institutions and difficulties in implementing policy as well as a populist style of leadership. Ultimately, the book offers some "best practices" in relation to the design and use of regimes of exception in democratic contexts. Other studies on emergency politics tend to focus on legal or formal issues in the context of the United States War on Terror. This study is decidedly political and empirical in focus, offering analysis and interpretation as a result of intensive fieldwork carried out by the author in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Consequently, this volume offers important contributions to our understanding of emergency politics in general (with evidence from the periphery) as well as to our understanding of democratization processes in the Third Wave.

This volume analyses the narration of the social through music and the seismographic function of music to detect social problems and envision alternatives. Beyond state-driven attempts to link musical production to the official narrative of the nation, mass musical movements emerged during the 20th century that provided countercultural and alternative narratives of the prevailing social context. The Americas contain numerous examples of the strong connection between music and politics; Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" envisioned a socialist transformation of the U.S., the Chilean Nueva Cancion created a narrative and affective frame for the recognition of popular culture as a central element of the cultural politics of the Chilean way to socialism, and Reggae emerged as a response to British colonialism, drawing inspiration and guidance from the pan-Africanist visions of Marcus Garvey. Providing a significant contribution to the study of music and politics/social movements from an inter-American perspective, this book will appeal to students and scholars of U.S. and Latin American Cultural Studies, Transnational Studies, History and Political Studies, Area Studies, and Music Studies. For additional information, please see the authors' Sonic Politics webpage: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/cias/sonicpolitics/index.html

In this study, distinguished international contributors project an 'open' Marxism - a rejection of the determinism and positivism which characterise so much of contemporary left-wing thought. Topics covered in the two volumes include Marxism and political economy, historical materialism, dialectics, state theory, class, fetishism and the periodisation of capitalist development.

Jose Carlos Mariategui is widely considered one of Latin America's greatest Marxist theoreticians and activists and remains nearly unknown in the English-speaking world. This collection of essays is an attempt to introduce the breadth and depth of Mariategui's thought to a new generation of English-speaking students of history, philosophy, literature, radical theory and practice.

Does the dithering intellectualism of left politics prevent genuine political action? Many theorists have said this, but this book refutes these arguments, reconciling philosophical debates with the realities of current activism. This book is an important effort to enliven liberal conceptions of politics and political action by providing new and fresh ideas about many of the very points on which liberalism is frequently pronounced boring, fading, or useless.

Jean-Paul Sartre originally made the term 'engagement' part of the existentialist vocabulary following WWII. It implies the responsibility of intervening in social or political conflicts in the hope of fostering freedom. Imagining the Possible opens different windows upon this particular engagement.

First published in 1999, this volume why Europe's arguably most successful political party, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, become so divided over European integration. Why were its grass-roots so reluctant to embrace EU membership and why did a Social Democratic government decide to stand aside from the launch of the single European currency? What connection is there between Europe and the Swedish model of political economy? While much has been written in English on Swedish Social Democracy, little of this literature has dealt with its difficulties during the 1990s and especially with its acute problems over Europe. This book fills that gap. Using original, primary data, Nicholas Aylott addresses the topic from macro and micro-political perspectives, taking account of historical, cultural, geopolitical and economic constraints, but also the interests and calculations of key individuals at critical junctures. It places the experience of Swedish Social Democracy into a broad comparative framework, drawing especially from the experiences of its Scandinavian sister parties. Up-to-date analysis of the party's debate on EMU is included.

This book addresses the contemporary debate about the 'third way' in European social democracy, by analysing the exemplar case of social democracy - 'the Swedish model' - this book challenges the recent 'third way' perspective. The author argues strongly against the widely held belief that the nature of contemporary capitalist restructuring and globalisation has rendered traditional social democracy obsolete.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203164911

Ever since the rise of mass labor movements in the late nineteenth century, socialism has been seen as an inevi- table and antagonistic response to capitalism and the spread of industrialization. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, socialism's failure to gain ground in the United States and most of the non-Western world exposed the limited, Eurocentric views of socialist theorists, and also the inadequacy of the theory as it applied to Europe as well. John Kautsky argues that a key factor in the development of social democratic labor movements was the persistence of powerful remnants of aristocratic institutions and ideologies whose survival into the industrial age preserved exclusionary hierarchies. These led, in turn, to radicalism and class consciousness among workers.

Kautsky traces the evolution of socialist labor movements in Europe and Japan where aristocratic elements were still strong, detailing the survival of aristocratic privilege and the concomitants of worker class consciousness and demands for equality. He shows how social democratic reliance on free elections was primarily a weapon against the aristocracy rather than capitalism. Contradicting socialist theory, working-class growth came to an end, class lines became blurred, and a considerable degree of equality was achieved through the welfare state.

Kautsky turns to those countries that were sufficiently industrialized to have large numbers of workers, but also had reasonably free elections, civil liberties, and less repression of trade unions. Though the United States, Canada, post-Soviet Russia, Mexico, and India have very different histories and societies, their workers have not confronted a powerful aristocracy. Great Britain, the first and for long the most advanced industrial country, was virtually the last to develop a socialist labor movement. In contrast, socialist movements in Canada and the United States, where egalitarian traditions were strong, found little support. Kautsky's concluding chapters treat the spread of corruption, the rise of new oligarchies in Russia, and the position of workers no longer honored and politically weak.

In its innovative perspective on long-held theories and its currency for contemporary problems, "Social Democracy and Aristocracy" is an important contribution to political thought in the post-Marxist world. Its global approach makes it uniquely valuable for the comparative study of labor history and economic development.

This book relates the stories of four leaders under very different political regimes: Colonial, Nationalist and Communist. The authors compare Chinese notions of respect and inspiration with their equivalents in other religious and political histories of colonial and post-colonial modernity, thereby producing a thorough re-working of the idea of charisma. The result is an intriguing study of the relationship between religious and political authority in a changing world.

An introduction to Eastern Europe in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 spelled the end of reformist communism and the tightening of Soviet control throughout Eastern Europe. In spite of this, several countries within the Soviet Bloc managed to retain varying degrees of independence over the next two decades. Focusing on the struggle towards economic and social modernization in the region and the competing influences of East and West in a dangerous Cold War. Bulent Gokay shows how individual circumstances, as well as diverse national characteristics, made a uniform application of the Soviet model impossible, and charts the growing resistance to domination and the momentous events which finally toppled Soviet power in the region.

On the eve of the First World War, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) was the largest and most powerful socialist party in the world. German Social Democracy through British Eyes examines the SPD's rise using British diplomatic reports from Saxony, the third-largest federal state in Imperial Germany and the cradle of the socialist movement in that country. Rather than focusing on the Anglo-German antagonism leading to the First World War, the book peers into the everyday struggles of German workers to build a political movement and emancipate themselves from the worst features of a modern capitalist system: exploitation, poverty, and injustice. The archival documents, most of which have never been published before, raise the question of how people from one nation view people from another. The documents also illuminate political systems, election practices, and anti-democratic strategies at the local and regional levels, allowing readers to test hypotheses derived only from national-level studies. This collection of primary sources shows why, despite the inhospitable environment of German authoritarianism, Saxony and Germany were among the most important incubators of socialism.