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.

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

Get Book Here

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.

Europe's Radical Left

Europe's Radical Left PDF Author: Luke March
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 178348537X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 467

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Book Description
Although the most pernicious consequences of the crisis have apparently abated, the long-term political repercussions remain unclear. Whereas most attention has focused on the right-wing populist parties, the rejuvenation of the left is an unwritten story of post-crisis politics. This volume addresses this story, with three principal aims: to examine the radical left intellectual response to the crisis, i.e. how actors conceptualise the causes of crisis and its consequences; to examine the radical left electoral response to the crisis, i.e. how the crisis has aided or weakened the electoral success of radical left parties and movements; to examine organisational responses, i.e. whether the crisis has resulted in new party structures, methods of organising, and internal party tendencies. The result is a comprehensive compendium, drawing on cutting-edge research from leading European experts to present the first comparative analysis of how the far left of the political spectrum has responded to the crisis. It furthers our understanding both of the dynamics of European party systems and the wider consequences of the Great Recession.

The European Radical Left

The European Radical Left PDF Author: Giorgos Charalambous
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN: 9780745340517
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A historical analysis of radical left parties and movements in Europe spanning the late 1960s to the anti-austerity movements of the late 2000s

The Left Case Against the EU

The Left Case Against the EU PDF Author: Costas Lapavitsas
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509531084
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Many on the Left see the European Union as a fundamentally benign project with the potential to underpin ever greater cooperation and progress. If it has drifted rightward, the answer is to fight for reform from within. In this iconoclastic polemic, economist Costas Lapavitsas demolishes this view. He contends that the EU’s response to the Eurozone crisis represents the ultimate transformation of the union into a neoliberal citadel that institutionally embeds austerity, privatization, and wage cuts. Concurrently, the rise of German hegemony has divided the EU into an unstable core and dependent peripheries. These related developments make the EU impervious to meaningful reform. The solution is therefore a direct challenge to the EU project that stresses popular and national sovereignty as preconditions for true internationalist socialism. Lapavitsas’s powerful manifesto for a left opposition to the EU upends the wishful thinking that often characterizes the debate and will be a challenging read for all on the Left interested in the future of Europe.

Resistance in the Age of Austerity

Resistance in the Age of Austerity PDF Author: Owen Worth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1780323379
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
In November 1999 the first protests associated with the 'anti-globalisation movement' took place in Seattle, and came to be seen as the starting point for globalised resistance to neoliberal capitalism. Despite initial optimism, the following years have seen little progress in formulating a coherent alternative to neoliberalism, a failure that has become particularly poignant in the aftermath of the recent credit crisis. Now, the neoliberal mandate that appeared to be in 'crisis' in just 2008 has reinvented itself through the guise of a new 'era of austerity'. In this timely book, Worth assesses the growing diversity of resistance to neoliberalism - progressive, nationalist and religious - and argues that, troublingly, the more reactionary alternatives to globalisation currently provide just as coherent a base for building opposition as those associated with the traditional 'left-wing' anti-globalisation movements. From the shortcomings of the Occupy movement to the rise of Radical Islam, the re-emergence of the far-right in Western Europe to the startling impact of the Tea Party in the US - Worth shows that while a progressive alternative is possible, it cannot be taken for granted.

New Parties of the Left

New Parties of the Left PDF Author: Daniel Bensaïd
Publisher: IMG Publications
ISBN: 9780902869516
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
With its latest publication "New Parties of the Left: Experiences from Europe," the IIRE, in collaboration with Resistance Books, provides a much needed analysis of the European regroupment of the radical left. With its pan-European focus combined with detailed accounts from France, Denmark, Britain, Germany, Italy and Portugal this book offers a unique and unprecedented insight into contemporary political history of the radical left in Europe. Social democratic and Stalinist parties, including the Labour Party in Britain and the Socialist Party in France, have shifted to the right across the continent and have fully embraced neo-liberalism. This has opened up a political space to the left of social-democracy which has been filled by new formations of the radical left over the last decades. The book starts out with an introductory background chapter which takes an overall look at the developments of the radical left in Europe since 1989 and the collapse of the Left as we knew it. This chapter provides the reader with new statistical information, such as membership figures and election results, about the left parties and discusses similarities, differences and political challenges for these new parties. The late IIRE Fellow Daniel Bensaid puts the discussion on the reorganisation of the European left into a broader historical and ideological perspective in the chapter 'An idea whose time has come'. With the financial crisis, Bensaid writes, a holy alliance between the left and the right is being preached in order to socialise the losses after having privatised the profits. Social democratic parties have, across the continent, actively contributed in the destruction of the tools of social solidarity, and hereby undermined their own social base. At the same time, European communist parties are undergoing a slow agonising death. Against this background, Bensaid argues, there is a need for new anticapitalist parties, as he points out the successful stories across the continent. The following chapters provide valuable and unique first hand insight into the development and discussions within the New Anti-capitalist Party (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) in France, the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten) in Denmark, Respect in Britain, The Left (Die Linke) in Germany, the Communist Refoundation Party (Partito della Rifondazione Comunista) in Italy and the Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda) in Portugal. Each chapter covers a political party and is written by a long-standing member of the party in question. Contributors: Daniel Bensaid Salvatore Cannavo Jorge Costa Klaus Engert Alain Krivine John Lister Miguel Romero Alda Sousa Alan Thornett Bertil Videt Michael Voss

Crisis

Crisis PDF Author: Sylvia Walby
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150950320X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations – a focus on ‘austerity’ and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on ‘financial crisis’ and democratic regulation of finance – are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.

Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis

Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis PDF Author: Donatella della Porta
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9780745688589
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Recent years have seen an enormous increase in protests across the world in which citizens have challenged what they see as a deterioration of democratic institutions and the very civil, political and social rights that form the basis of democratic life. Beginning with Iceland in 2008, and then forcefully in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece and Portugal, or more recently in Peru, Brazil, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine, people have taken to the streets against what they perceive as a rampant and dangerous corruption of democracy, with a distinct focus on inequality and suffering. This timely new book addresses the anti-austerity social movements of which these protests form part, mobilizing in the context of a crisis of neoliberalism. Donatella della Porta shows that, in order to understand their main facets in terms of social basis, strategy, and identity and organizational structures, we should look at the specific characteristics of the socioeconomic, cultural and political context in which they developed. The result is an important and insightful contribution to understanding a key issue of our times, which will be of interest to students and scholars of political and economic sociology, political science and social movement studies, as well as political activists.

The Radical Left Party Family in Western Europe, 1989-2015

The Radical Left Party Family in Western Europe, 1989-2015 PDF Author: Paolo Chiocchetti
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317221869
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
This book provides an innovative analysis and interpretation of the overall trajectory of the Western European radical left from 1989 to 2015. After the collapse of really existing communism, this party family renewed itself and embarked on a recovery path, seeking to fill the vacuum of representation of disaffected working-class and welfarist constituencies created by the progressive neoliberalisation of European societies. The radical left thus emerged as a significant factor of contemporary political life but, despite some electoral gains and a few recent breakthroughs (SYRIZA in Greece, PODEMOS in Spain), it altogether failed to embody a credible alternative to neoliberalism and to pave the way for a turn to a different developmental model. This book investigates why this was the case, combining aggregate (17 countries), case study (Germany, Italy, and France), and comparative methods. It accurately charts the evolution of the nature, strength, cohesion, and influence of the Western European radical left, offering new insights in explaining its behaviour, success, and limits. It is essential reading for scholars, students, and activists interested in the radical left and in contemporary European politics.

1989 and the West

1989 and the West PDF Author: Eleni Braat
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351379925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Back in 1989, many anticipated that the end of the Cold War would usher in the ‘end of history’ characterized by the victory of democracy and capitalism. At the thirtieth anniversary of this momentous event, this book challenges this assumption. It studies the most recent era of contemporary European history in order to analyse the impact, consequences and legacy of the end of the Cold War for Western Europe. Bringing together leading scholars on the topic, the volume answers the question of how the end of the Cold War has affected Western Europe and reveals how it accelerated and reinforced processes that shaped the fragile (geo-)political and economic order of the continent today. In four thematic sections, the book analyses the changing position of Germany in Europe; studies the transformation of neoliberal capitalism; answers the question how Western Europe faced the geopolitical challenges after the Berlin Wall came down; and investigates the crisis of representative democracy. As such, the book provides a comprehensive and novel historical perspective on Europe since the late 1980s.