European Socialists and the State in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

European Socialists and the State in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries PDF Author: Mathieu Fulla
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030415406
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This edited volume promotes a comparative and transnational approach to the complex and ambiguous relationship between West European socialism and the contemporary state over the longue durée. It encourages a better understanding of socialism while also casting an original light on the history of the contemporary state in Europe. Socialists have been a prime political force since the late nineteenth century through to the present. Through their strength, their presence at the heart of societies, their dynamism, inventiveness, and influence, they have left their mark on the European physiognomy and helped to forge part of its identity. This is particularly true where the welfare state is concerned, and the role played by the state in constructing, embedding, and extending this social model. Surprisingly, there has been no research aiming to systematically analyse the relationship between socialism and the state. This volume fills a gap in knowledge by rejecting the media simplification and political polemic maintained by opponents of socialism – and sometimes by socialists themselves – which systematically links socialism with “statism”. It focuses on numerous case studies involving France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, and highlights the diversity of organisations within European socialism. Ultimately, this book demonstrates that the fate of this political culture depends on the socialist parties themselves but also on any new configurations that states may assume. Conversely, the future of states will also depend partly on the choices made by socialists, if they still exist and still have the means to shape decisions and make their voices heard.

European Socialists and the State in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

European Socialists and the State in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries PDF Author: Mathieu Fulla
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030415406
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Get Book Here

Book Description
This edited volume promotes a comparative and transnational approach to the complex and ambiguous relationship between West European socialism and the contemporary state over the longue durée. It encourages a better understanding of socialism while also casting an original light on the history of the contemporary state in Europe. Socialists have been a prime political force since the late nineteenth century through to the present. Through their strength, their presence at the heart of societies, their dynamism, inventiveness, and influence, they have left their mark on the European physiognomy and helped to forge part of its identity. This is particularly true where the welfare state is concerned, and the role played by the state in constructing, embedding, and extending this social model. Surprisingly, there has been no research aiming to systematically analyse the relationship between socialism and the state. This volume fills a gap in knowledge by rejecting the media simplification and political polemic maintained by opponents of socialism – and sometimes by socialists themselves – which systematically links socialism with “statism”. It focuses on numerous case studies involving France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, and highlights the diversity of organisations within European socialism. Ultimately, this book demonstrates that the fate of this political culture depends on the socialist parties themselves but also on any new configurations that states may assume. Conversely, the future of states will also depend partly on the choices made by socialists, if they still exist and still have the means to shape decisions and make their voices heard.

The Development of European Competition Policy

The Development of European Competition Policy PDF Author: Brian Shaev
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351010565
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This book considers a central issue of our time: the relationship between the macroeconomic objectives of political parties in democratic countries and the legal framework of market economies. The impressive panel of contributors examines social-democratic policies on cartels, market concentration and competition in different European countries, spanning a hundred-year period (specifically the interwar period, the initial postwar period, the 1960s and 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s, and the 2000s). This thought-provoking volume challenges the dominant belief that the EU’s economic system and competition policy were mainly influenced by neoliberal economic thinking, instead showing that Keynesian and social-democratic positions played a major role in the emergence of this system. It will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policymakers interested in modern economic history, industrial organization, political economy, European legal history and political science.

Rethinking European Social Democracy and Socialism

Rethinking European Social Democracy and Socialism PDF Author: Alan Granadino
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000518698
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
With a combined focus on social democrats in Northern and Southern Europe, this book crucially broadens our understanding of the transformation of European social democracy from the mid-1970s to the early-1990s. In doing so, it revisits the transformation of this ideological family at the end of the Cold War, and before the launch of Third Way politics, and examines the dynamics and power relations at play among European social democratic parties in a context of nascent globalisation. The chronological, methodological and geographical approaches adopted allow for a more nuanced narrative of change for European social democracy than the hitherto dominant centric perspective. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of social democracy, the European Centre-left, political parties, ideologies and more broadly to comparative politics and European politics and history.

Leftist Internationalisms

Leftist Internationalisms PDF Author: Michele Di Donato
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350247928
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
This volume offers a new perspective on the political history of the socialist, communist and alternative political Lefts, focusing on the role of networks and transnational connections. Embedding the history of left-wing internationalism into a new political history approach, it accounts for global and transnational turns in the study of left-wing politics. The essays in this collection study a range of examples of international engagement and transnational cooperation in which left-wing actors were involved, and explore how these interactions shaped the globalization of politics throughout the 20th century. In taking a multi-archival and methodological approach, this book challenges two conventional views - that the left gradually abandoned its original international to focus exclusively on the national framework, and that internationalism survived merely as a rhetorical device. Instead, this collection highlights how different currents of the Left developed their own versions of internationalism in order to adapt to the transformation of politics in the interdependent 20th-century world. Demonstrating the importance of political convergence, alliance-formation, network construction and knowledge circulation within and between the socialist and communist movements, it shows that the influence of internationalism is central to understanding the foreign policy of various left-wing parties and movements.

Liberalism and War

Liberalism and War PDF Author: Andrew J. Williams
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040268536
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
In this book, leading scholar Andrew J. Williams examines contemporary liberal thinking on the ending of wars and puts it into its historical context. Using a vast range of archival material, he examines the main strategies used by liberal states to consolidate their gains in the aftermath of war and prevent conflict re-occurring. Considering historical wars from the nineteenth century to the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the war in Ukraine since 2022, Williams explores the continuities and changes within western liberalism in response to war and the encouragement of peace. These include, in recent times, the emergence of ‘neoliberalism’, a growing revulsion against ‘humanitarian intervention’ and the evolution of legal attempts to control illiberal regimes. He shows how liberalism and the articulation of international norms and institutions sprang out of historical traditions linked to colonialism but also out of a desire to promote liberty and justice. He examines the attitudes and practices that have distorted liberalism’s essentially emancipatory nature into one that has encouraged hubris in foreign policy and an increasingly divisive set of economic, political and social policies. He suggests that a new liberal impulse to encourage the spread of democracy and international justice is possible, one that returns to a more realistic approach to intervention in international conflicts. The book will appeal to scholars and students of war, conflict and political theory interested in the historical perceptions at the heart of many of the mistakes made by liberalism in the ending of wars. It will also give hope to those who still believe that liberalism can be the organising feature of a just and equitable world order.

The Christian Right in Europe

The Christian Right in Europe PDF Author: Gionathan Lo Mascolo
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839460387
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
Inspired by the success of the US Christian Right and the rise of the global far-right, ultraconservative Christians in Europe are joining forces and seek to reshape Europe. By assembling in anti-gender movements and sharing anti-Muslim narratives, they actively influence the political landscape and shape government policies. The contributors offer new perspectives on the protagonists and the entangled networks that work to abolish liberal democracy in Europe behind the scenes. This anthology is the first to bring together case studies on the Christian Right in over 20 European countries, providing a transnational perspective and an accessible insight for clergy, politicians, and academics alike.

The Resistible Corrosion of Europe’s Center-Left After 2008

The Resistible Corrosion of Europe’s Center-Left After 2008 PDF Author: Georg Menz
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000634531
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This book examines and explains the Center-Left’s political decline since 2008, whilst analyzing the factors that account for its sagging electoral and popular support, losing voters both to the Far-Left, the Far-Right, and abstentions. Focusing on the era since the 2008 financial crisis in particular, while also charting the historical genealogy that led to the current impasse, the book examines how, when and why the collapse of Europe’s Center-Left occurred. Moving beyond existing and slightly dated accounts, the contributors explore why Social Democrats lack compelling answers to pressing current policy challenges. Faced with a decline in its core clientele, namely blue-collar workers, the Center-Left is being outflanked and risks permanently jeopardizing its erstwhile status as representing a catch-all party. Exploring one of the more pressing and timely political puzzles of the contemporary political scene in Europe, the book identifies six factors that have driven the decline of the Left and examines them systematically across eight countries: France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Denmark. This book will be of particular interest to both scholars and students of social democracy, political parties, and the politics of the Left and more broadly to those interested in European and comparative politics, governance, and contemporary history.

When Left Moves Right

When Left Moves Right PDF Author: Maria Snegovaya
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197699030
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
In When Left Moves Right, Maria Snegovaya argues that the transition-era pro-market convergence of mainstream parties, particularly the neoliberal policies adopted by former communist left parties, left reform losers (electorates in precarious economic situations, such as working-class electorates) without political representation. Subsequently, these social groups were incorporated by emerging populist political actors.

Screening Solidarity

Screening Solidarity PDF Author: Helga Druxes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Western neoliberalism is a predatory outgrowth of late capitalism that overvalues competition, transferring the laws of the market to human relationships. This book advances the argument that anti-neoliberal cinemas of Europe, the United States, and the Russian Federation imagine and visualize alternatives to the non-sovereign realities of a neoliberal workplace that unequivocally endorses dangerous risk-taking, self-optimizing neoliberal subjects, and corporate 'entrepreneurs of self.' Always at stake in the examination of neoliberalism's consequences is a human being who is indexed by race, gender, nation, ability, and economic performance. Drawing on film theory, transnational social histories, critical race theory, and Marxist and Foucauldian interpretive models, this book rediscovers a cinema that imagines a social contract focused on the common good and ethical standards for the social state. Anti-neoliberal cinema empowers the viewer as agentive through narratives that detail resistance to Western neoliberal modes of living and working. These filmmakers dramatize the labor of making solidarity across different groups.

The Rise and Fall of Swedish Social Democracy

The Rise and Fall of Swedish Social Democracy PDF Author: Kjell Ostbjerg
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1804294675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Whatever happened to the poster child of European social democracy? For a young generation of socialists, the Swedish experience has been an obvious reference and inspiration. But what remains of the Swedish model today is, in fact, a failed project in decline. This book is the first comprehensive study of the rise and fall of one of the most influential political movements of our time. Ostberg depicts the rise of one of the 20th century's best organized labor movements and Sweden's development from one of Europe's poorest countries to one of the richest and with the most extensive welfare. During the last 90 years, Sweden had a social democratic prime minister for 72 years, including a 44 year uninterrupted span. The Swedish model culminated in the 1970s. Under the pressure of wildcat strikes and new social movements, a highly competent Social Democratic government implemented unique social reforms mainly through a decommodified public sector. Many reforms had a distinct gender equality character. The Social Democratic-led trade union movement sought to take over control of Swedish companies through wage earners’ funds. Was Sweden on its way to becoming a socialist country? Instead, Swedish Social Democracy quickly adapted to the economic and political conditions of the neoliberal counter-revolution. Today, large parts of the public sector have been privatized and social inequality has increased faster than in most other countries, despite social democratic governments in power. The Social Democratic party is being challenged by the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats as the largest labour party. Kjell Ostbjerg discusses the strength and weakness of the reformist strategy, the importance of class organizations and social mobilization and the struggle for power in the workplace, the influence of the labor bureaucracy, the role of women in the creation of the Swedish welfare society and the dependence of Social Democracy on the development of international capitalism.