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In the late 1990s Third Way governments were in power across Europe - and beyond, in the USA and Brazil, for instance. The Third Way experiment was one that attracted attention worldwide. The changes made by Left parties in Scandinavia, Holland, France or Italy since the late 1980s are as much part of Third Way politics as those developed in Anglo-Saxon countries. Since the early 1990s welfare reform has been at the heart of the Centre-Left's search for a new political middle way between post-war social democracy and Thatcherite Conservatism. For Tony Blair, welfare reform was key to establishing his New Labour credentials - just as it was for Bill Clinton and the New Democrats in the USA. Equality has been 'the polestar of the Left', and the redefinition of this concept by Giddens and New Labour marks a significant departure from post-war social democratic goals. The most useful way of approaching the problem of the Blair Government's 'Third Way' is to apply the term to its 'operational code': the precepts, assumptions and ideas that actually inform policy choice. The choice would be the strategy of public-private partnership (PPP) or the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), as applied to health policy. New Labour is deeply influenced by the thoughts and sentiments of Amitai Etzioni and the new communitarian movement. Repoliticisation is what stands out from all the contributions of reconstructing the Third Way along more progressive lines.
8 Elysian fields The end of the Bush regime, and its replacement by a new Democrat administration headed by Barack Obama, was hailed as a sign of positive directional change in the war on terror. Yet despite key areas of difference, continuities in US policy remained apparent. The most significant of these centred on the war in Afghanistan, where the shifting nature of the military strategy was accompanied by an increasing escalation in the conflict. In Britain, where domestic support for the campaign remained weak, ministers continued to emphasise the national
Since the early 1990s welfare reform has been at the heart of the Centre-Left’s search for a new political middle way between post-war social democracy and Thatcherite Conservatism. For Tony Blair, welfare reform was key to establishing his New Labour credentials – just as it was for Bill Clinton and the New Democrats in the USA. 1 In government
the day of the Third Way seemed to have disappeared even more quickly than it had found itself in the ascendant. The New Democrats were defeated for the US presidency by Republican George W. Bush. Across Europe parties of the Right knocked out of power Third Way exponents from the Centre-Left. Blair in Britain, perhaps the Third Way’s foremost advocate, remained in power but
that he was surprised at the concessions his fellow Liberals had been prepared to make in seat allocations in Kirklees, and said he would have held out for a better deal.31 Wainwright did not dismiss or disown the Alliance in public; indeed he expressed gratitude for the support in making economic policy of the SDP spokesman Ian Wrigglesworth,32 and immediately after the 1983 General Election invested £2,000 in the founding of a joint Alliance magazine, The New Democrat, for which both he and his son Martin wrote.33 However, Wainwright’s correspondence and the
(Italy)/Movimento per l’Ulivo MRG Left Radical Movement (France) (now PRG)/Mouvement Radical de Gauche MSI Italian Social Movement/Movimento Sociale Italiano MSP Moderate Unity Party (Sweden)/Moderate Samlingspartiet ND New Democracy (Greece)/Nea Demokratia ND New Democrats (Sweden)/Ny Demokrati NPD National Democratic Party of Germany/Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands NUDF New Union for French
‘mainstream’ parties. In the US and UK, the rule of the right gave way to ‘new’ Democrats and Labour, both of which embraced and in some instances extended many of the neoliberal reforms enacted during the preceding decade. There were then twists and turns as sections of the right won electoral victories on the basis of ‘compassionate conservatism’ and the promise of a ‘Big Society’. Those long-established parties have now, as the crisis has taken its toll, come under substantial strain. Processes of ‘party decline’ have accelerated. Perhaps more importantly, in Europe at
leaders, and he fundamentally understood the instincts and style of the Clinton White House – his own ‘New Labour’ had, after all, taken as its inspiration Clinton’s ‘New Democrats’. Predictions • Focus upon security threats. • Asymmetrical alliance dynamics. • Utility of maintaining close alliance with US. Variable Realism: power and threat • Instability in Balkans & from Kosovar refugees could potentially spread & become a wider security problem. • Necessity of harnessing the power of the US in order to stop Milosovic. Evidence from Kosovo & Sierra Leone • Blair
Introduction Although the ‘Third Way’ has had many previous incarnations, the current version is generally said to have originated with the New Democrats and the Clinton administration, from 1992 in the USA, 1 and been taken up by Blair’s New Labour Government in the UK. However, there remains widespread debate over whether the term is applicable
better described as a ‘miniquake’ – occurred two decades after the rest of mainland Scandinavia, but at the 1991 Riksdag election two new parties, the Christian Democrats and New Democracy (Ny demokrati), made a parliamentary breakthrough. New Democracy polled 6.7 per cent. Formed, like Glistrup’s Progress Party and Anders Lange’s Party, only months before the general election, by a count, Ian Wachtmeister, and a fairground owner, Bert Karlsson (who also owned a record company and had come to public prominence with his criticism of food prices), the New Democrats