A Remarkable Political Movement

A Remarkable Political Movement PDF Author: V. Shanmuganathan
Publisher: Prabhat Prakashan
ISBN: 8184302576
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
This concise book portrays the vignettes of what I call ‘A Remarkable Political Movement’. It draws upon my experiences in social and political activism. This remarkable movement; anchored to Indian view of nationalism; captivated my imagination. Subsequently; it became the preoccupation of my life. While still young; I came across an extraordinary letter written by Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay to his maternal uncle. The letter succinctly explains why the ideologue of Jana Sangh wanted to dedicate his life for the cause of the nation. Pt. Upadhyay says; “Any individual may achieve a very high degree of progress; but that has no significance unless his motherland too; registers corresponding progress.... We are nowadays interested only in reaping the harvest and have forgotten to provide the field with manure. Can we not forego a few worthless ambitions for the protection and benefit of our own people?” The letter turned a refreshing chapter in my life. It was an exposition that ‘giving’ makes one nobler than ‘taking’. It was in 1951 that Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee launched the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. The BJP is continuing the work of the Jana Sangh with a missionary zeal to make Bharat the greatest country in the world. The book also contains some articles on India’s rich cultural; spiritual and literary life.

A Remarkable Political Movement

A Remarkable Political Movement PDF Author: V. Shanmuganathan
Publisher: Prabhat Prakashan
ISBN: 8184302576
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Get Book Here

Book Description
This concise book portrays the vignettes of what I call ‘A Remarkable Political Movement’. It draws upon my experiences in social and political activism. This remarkable movement; anchored to Indian view of nationalism; captivated my imagination. Subsequently; it became the preoccupation of my life. While still young; I came across an extraordinary letter written by Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay to his maternal uncle. The letter succinctly explains why the ideologue of Jana Sangh wanted to dedicate his life for the cause of the nation. Pt. Upadhyay says; “Any individual may achieve a very high degree of progress; but that has no significance unless his motherland too; registers corresponding progress.... We are nowadays interested only in reaping the harvest and have forgotten to provide the field with manure. Can we not forego a few worthless ambitions for the protection and benefit of our own people?” The letter turned a refreshing chapter in my life. It was an exposition that ‘giving’ makes one nobler than ‘taking’. It was in 1951 that Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee launched the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. The BJP is continuing the work of the Jana Sangh with a missionary zeal to make Bharat the greatest country in the world. The book also contains some articles on India’s rich cultural; spiritual and literary life.

Assembly

Assembly PDF Author: Michael Hardt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190677988
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
In recent years "leaderless" social movements have proliferated around the globe, from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe, the Americas, and East Asia. Some of these movements have led to impressive gains: the toppling of authoritarian leaders, the furthering of progressive policy, and checks on repressive state forces. They have also been, at times, derided by journalists and political analysts as disorganized and ineffectual, or suppressed by disoriented and perplexed police forces and governments who fail to effectively engage them. Activists, too, struggle to harness the potential of these horizontal movements. Why have the movements, which address the needs and desires of so many, not been able to achieve lasting change and create a new, more democratic and just society? Some people assume that if only social movements could find new leaders they would return to their earlier glory. Where, they ask, are the new Martin Luther Kings, Rudi Dutschkes, and Stephen Bikos? With the rise of right-wing political parties in many countries, the question of how to organize democratically and effectively has become increasingly urgent. Although today's leaderless political organizations are not sufficient, a return to traditional, centralized forms of political leadership is neither desirable nor possible. Instead, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, familiar roles must be reversed: leaders should be responsible for short-term, tactical action, but it is the multitude that must drive strategy. In other words, if these new social movements are to achieve meaningful revolution, they must invent effective modes of assembly and decision-making structures that rely on the broadest democratic base. Drawing on ideas developed through their well-known Empire trilogy, Hardt and Negri have produced, in Assembly, a timely proposal for how current large-scale horizontal movements can develop the capacities for political strategy and decision-making to effect lasting and democratic change. We have not yet seen what is possible when the multitude assembles.

Politics Is for Power

Politics Is for Power PDF Author: Eitan Hersh
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1982116781
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A brilliant condemnation of political hobbyism—treating politics like entertainment—and a call to arms for well-meaning, well-informed citizens who consume political news, but do not take political action. Who is to blame for our broken politics? The uncomfortable answer to this question starts with ordinary citizens with good intentions. We vote (sometimes) and occasionally sign a petition or attend a rally. But we mainly “engage” by consuming politics as if it’s a sport or a hobby. We soak in daily political gossip and eat up statistics about who’s up and who’s down. We tweet and post and share. We crave outrage. The hours we spend on politics are used mainly as pastime. Instead, we should be spending the same number of hours building political organizations, implementing a long-term vision for our city or town, and getting to know our neighbors, whose votes will be needed for solving hard problems. We could be accumulating power so that when there are opportunities to make a difference—to lobby, to advocate, to mobilize—we will be ready. But most of us who are spending time on politics today are focused inward, choosing roles and activities designed for our short-term pleasure. We are repelled by the slow-and-steady activities that characterize service to the common good. In Politics Is for Power, pioneering and brilliant data analyst Eitan Hersh shows us a way toward more effective political participation. Aided by political theory, history, cutting-edge social science, as well as remarkable stories of ordinary citizens who got off their couches and took political power seriously, this book shows us how to channel our energy away from political hobbyism and toward empowering our values.

Movement Parties Against Austerity

Movement Parties Against Austerity PDF Author: Donatella della Porta
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509511490
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
The ascendance of austerity policies and the protests they have generated have had a deep impact on the shape of contemporary politics. The stunning electoral successes of SYRIZA in Greece, Podemos in Spain and the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in Italy, alongside the quest for a more radical left in countries such as the UK and the US, bear witness to a new wave of parties that draws inspiration and strength from social movements. The rise of movement parties challenges simplistic expectations of a growing separation between institutional and contentious politics and the decline of the left. Their return demands attention as a way of understanding both contemporary socio-political dynamics and the fundamentals of political parties and representation. Bridging social movement and party politics studies, within a broad concern with democratic theories, this volume presents new empirical evidence and conceptual insight into these topical socio-political phenomena, within a cross-national comparative perspective.

Moving Politics

Moving Politics PDF Author: Deborah B. Gould
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226305317
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 537

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Book Description
In the late 1980s, after a decade spent engaged in more routine interest-group politics, thousands of lesbians and gay men responded to the AIDS crisis by defiantly and dramatically taking to the streets. But by the early 1990s, the organization they founded, ACT UP, was no more—even as the AIDS epidemic raged on. Weaving together interviews with activists, extensive research, and reflections on the author’s time as a member of the organization, Moving Politics is the first book to chronicle the rise and fall of ACT UP, highlighting a key factor in its trajectory: emotion. Surprisingly overlooked by many scholars of social movements, emotion, Gould argues, plays a fundamental role in political activism. From anger to hope, pride to shame, and solidarity to despair, feelings played a significant part in ACT UP’s provocative style of protest, which included raucous demonstrations, die-ins, and other kinds of street theater. Detailing the movement’s public triumphs and private setbacks, Moving Politics is the definitive account of ACT UP’s origin, development, and decline as well as a searching look at the role of emotion in contentious politics.

Freedom Is an Endless Meeting

Freedom Is an Endless Meeting PDF Author: Francesca Polletta
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226924289
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This “excellent study of activist politics in the United States over the past century” challenges the conventional wisdom about participatory democracy (Times Literary Supplement). Freedom Is an Endless Meeting offers vivid portraits of American experiments in participatory democracy throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on meticulous research and more than one hundred interviews with activists, Francesca Polletta upends the notion that participatory democracy is worthy in purpose but unworkable in practice. Instead, she shows that social movements have often used bottom-up decision making as a powerful tool for political change. Polletta traces the history of democracy from early labor struggles and pre-World War II pacifism, through the civil rights, new left, and women’s liberation movements of the sixties and seventies, and into today’s faith-based organizing and anti-corporate globalization campaigns. In the process, she uncovers neglected sources of democratic inspiration—such as Depression-era labor educators and Mississippi voting registration workers—as well as practical strategies of social protest. Polletta also highlights the obstacles that arise when activists model their democracies after nonpolitical relationships such as friendship, tutelage, and religious fellowship. She concludes with a call to forge new kinds of democratic relationships that balance trust with accountability, respect with openness to disagreement, and caring with inclusiveness. For anyone concerned about the prospects for democracy in America, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting will offer abundant historical, theoretical, and practical insights.

Another Politics

Another Politics PDF Author: Chris Dixon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520958845
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Amidst war, economic meltdown, and ecological crisis, a "new spirit of radicalism is blooming" from New York to Cairo, according to Chris Dixon. In Another Politics, he examines the trajectory of efforts that contributed to the radicalism of Occupy Wall Street and other recent movement upsurges. Drawing on voices of leading organizers across the United States and Canada, he delivers an engaging presentation of the histories and principles that shape many contemporary struggles. Dixon outlines the work of activists aligned with anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-oppression politics and discusses the lessons they are learning in their efforts to create social transformation. The book explores solutions to the key challenge for today’s activists, organizers, fighters, and dreamers: building a substantive link between the work of "against," which fights ruling institutions, and the work of "beyond," which develops liberatory alternatives.

Not in Our Lifetimes

Not in Our Lifetimes PDF Author: Michael C. Dawson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022670534X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Reflects on black politics in America and what it will take to to see equality.

When Movements Become Parties

When Movements Become Parties PDF Author: Santiago Anria
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110842757X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Provides a new way of thinking about parties formed by social movements, and their evolution over time.

Red Skin, White Masks

Red Skin, White Masks PDF Author: Glen Sean Coulthard
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452942439
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
WINNER OF: Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book from the Caribbean Philosophical Association Canadian Political Science Association’s C.B. MacPherson Prize Studies in Political Economy Book Prize Over the past forty years, recognition has become the dominant mode of negotiation and decolonization between the nation-state and Indigenous nations in North America. The term “recognition” shapes debates over Indigenous cultural distinctiveness, Indigenous rights to land and self-government, and Indigenous peoples’ right to benefit from the development of their lands and resources. In a work of critically engaged political theory, Glen Sean Coulthard challenges recognition as a method of organizing difference and identity in liberal politics, questioning the assumption that contemporary difference and past histories of destructive colonialism between the state and Indigenous peoples can be reconciled through a process of acknowledgment. Beyond this, Coulthard examines an alternative politics—one that seeks to revalue, reconstruct, and redeploy Indigenous cultural practices based on self-recognition rather than on seeking appreciation from the very agents of colonialism. Coulthard demonstrates how a “place-based” modification of Karl Marx’s theory of “primitive accumulation” throws light on Indigenous–state relations in settler-colonial contexts and how Frantz Fanon’s critique of colonial recognition shows that this relationship reproduces itself over time. This framework strengthens his exploration of the ways that the politics of recognition has come to serve the interests of settler-colonial power. In addressing the core tenets of Indigenous resistance movements, like Red Power and Idle No More, Coulthard offers fresh insights into the politics of active decolonization.