Search results
This book considers the underlying causes of the end of social democracy's golden age. It argues that the cross-national trend in social democratic parties since the 1970s has been towards an accommodation with neo-liberalism and a corresponding dilution of traditional social democratic commitments. The book looks at the impact of the change in economic conditions on social democracy in general, before examining the specific cases of Germany, Sweden and Australia. It examines the ideological crisis that engulfed social democracy. The book also looks at the post-1970 development of social policy, its fiscal implications and economic consequences in three European countries. It considers the evolution of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from its re-emergence as a significant political force during the 1970s until the present day under José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero. The book also examines the evolution of the Swedish model in conjunction with social democratic reformism and the party's relations to the union movement. It explores the latest debate about what the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) stands for. The SPD became the role model for programmatic modernisation for the European centre-left. The book considers how British socialist and social democratic thought from the late nineteenth century to the present has treated the objective of helping people to fulfil their potential, talents and ambitions. It aims to contribute to a broader conversation about the future of social democracy by considering ways in which the political thought of 'third way' social democracy might be radicalised for the twenty-first century.
2 The New Left Beyond Stalinism and social democracy? Paul Blackledge The New Left: beyond Stalinism and social democracy? The British New Left emerged in 1956 as a response to a global ideological crisis that opened with Khrushchev’s secret speech, but which came to fruition when the revolutionary workers’ movement in Hungary was suppressed by Russian tanks on the same weekend that Anglo‑French troops invaded Egypt.1 Together these events created a space for a critique of the world system as a totality. In this context the New Left aimed, by contrast both with
radicalisation of social democracy’s positions on production, and a greater ideological emphasis both on the control of the organisation of production and on the distribution of its results. This chapter discusses the changes in the 1970s as the gradual emergence of a new ideology in reaction to the critique of the late 1960s. This can be discussed in terms of an ideological crisis of social democracy. This crisis
Newspapers, magazines and pamphlets have always been central, almost sacred, forms of communication within Irish republican political culture. While social media is becoming the primary ideological battleground in many democracies, Irish republicanism steadfastly expresses itself in the traditional forms of activist journalism.
Shinners, Dissos and Dissenters is a long-term analysis of the development of Irish republican activist media since 1998 and the tumultuous years following the end of the Troubles. It is the first in-depth analysis of the newspapers, magazines and online spaces in which the differing strands of Irish republicanism developed and were articulated during a period where schism and dissent defined a return to violence.
Based on an analysis of Irish republican media outlets as well as interviews with the key activists that produced them, this book provides a compelling long-term snapshot of a political ideology in transition. It reveals how Irish Republicanism was moulded by the twin forces of the Northern Ireland Peace Process and the violent internal ideological schism that threatened a return to the ‘bad old days’ of the Troubles.
This book is vital for those studying Irish politics and those interestedin activism as it provides new insights into the role that modern activist media forms have played in the ideological development of a 200-year-old political tradition.
surprisingly durable, particularly in France and Germany. In the final chapter of Part I, Noel Thompson examines the ideological crisis that engulfed social democracy during the 1980s. Thompson focuses on the debate about economic strategy on the British left and traces how social democratic politicians and economists responded to the dethroning of Keynesianism by neo-liberalism as the dominant model of economic policy-making. Thompson argues that this period sees the defeat of a distinctively social democratic economic strategy in Britain, since it was ultimately rendered
Two hundred years after Radcliffe: the pull of the millennium, the sense of economic and ideological crisis, the advent of huge cultural shifts on a global basis. Gothic times again? Yes: I think that in the 1990s we do live within a neo-gothic culture that not only recalls a comparable political and philosophical situation from the 1790s but also begins
Malay society. Without the Sultans, remarked one official in 1927, the ‘Malays would become a mob’. 8 It is possible he was influenced by the counterexample against annexation which British policy in that other Southeast Asian country, Burma, had offered. The removal in 1886 of the Burmese monarchy – which appears to have been as pivotal as Malay monarchy in social, political and religious organisation – was followed by violent anarchy and ‘ideological crisis’. 9 From a Burmese perspective and in the words of a Burmese poem, the country had entered an ‘Age of
first album there’s really nothing there.’108 The ugly truth is that London Calling (1979) is (pace the title track) uncritically overrated; at best awkward and inflated, at worst incoherent and generically confused, the double album is symptomatic of a band in profound musical and ideological crisis. Following the bedlam of the ‘Anarchy’ tour and the tabloid hysteria in the aftermath of the Bill Grundy incident, the Pistols and McLaren gradually became discredited as a musical force as their sensationialist celebrity value increased.109 With more concert
Smith, M. J. (2001) New Labour in Government Marquand, D. (1992) The Progressive Dilemma: From Lloyd George to Kinnock McDonnell, K. (1978) ‘Ideology, crisis and the cuts’, Capital and Class, 4 Milliband, R. (1961) Parliamentary Socialism: A Study in the Politics of Labour Minkin, L. (1978) The Labour Party Conference Minkin, L. (1992) The Contentious Alliance: Trade Unions and the Labour Party, Edinburgh Minkin, L. (1997) Exits and Entrances: Political Research as a Creative Art, Sheffield Muller, W. D. (1977) The Kept Men? The First Century of Trade Unoin
2 Thatcher’s legacy: late-twentieth-century conservatism in context It was a totally no win situation. (Lord Parkinson, private interview, 2006) Introduction In 1997 the Conservative Party faced dual crises: an ideological crisis of the purpose of conservatism, and an electoral crisis of the politics of support. This chapter explores the context faced by the new leader of the opposition through an examination of both of these dimensions. Whilst these can be distinguished for analytical purposes, the two are inextricably linked. The chapter argues that these