The Death of Social Democracy

The Death of Social Democracy PDF Author: Ashley Lavelle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317036379
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Whereas many writers and scholars interested in the field of social democracy have focused on factors such as the role of economic globalization and electoral pressures, Ashley Lavelle explores the importance of the collapse of the post-war economic boom and lower growth rates since then. He examines how these pressures have led social democrats to embrace neo-liberal policies and become threatened by minor parties and independent politicians. Providing an original argument about the decline of social democracy, the author investigates how its decline has increased the popularity of minor parties and independents, along with the reasons for social democratic membership and electoral decline. This is an important book for scholars of social democracy and the broader themes of world politics, political parties, social movements and globalization.

The Death of Social Democracy

The Death of Social Democracy PDF Author: Ashley Lavelle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317036379
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Get Book Here

Book Description
Whereas many writers and scholars interested in the field of social democracy have focused on factors such as the role of economic globalization and electoral pressures, Ashley Lavelle explores the importance of the collapse of the post-war economic boom and lower growth rates since then. He examines how these pressures have led social democrats to embrace neo-liberal policies and become threatened by minor parties and independent politicians. Providing an original argument about the decline of social democracy, the author investigates how its decline has increased the popularity of minor parties and independents, along with the reasons for social democratic membership and electoral decline. This is an important book for scholars of social democracy and the broader themes of world politics, political parties, social movements and globalization.

Social Democratic America

Social Democratic America PDF Author: Lane Kenworthy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019932252X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
America is the one of the wealthiest nations on earth. So why do so many Americans struggle to make ends meet? Why is it so difficult for those who start at the bottom to reach the middle class? And why, if a rising economic tide lifts all boats, have middle-class incomes been growing so slowly? Social Democratic America explains how this has happened and how we can do better. Lane Kenworthy convincingly argues that we can improve economic security, expand opportunity, and ensure rising living standards for all by moving toward social democracy. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of social policy in America and other affluent countries, he proposes a set of public social programs, including universal early education, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, wage insurance, the government as employer of last resort, and many others. Kenworthy looks at common objections to social democracy, such as the oft-repeated claim that Americans don't want big government, which he readily debunks. Indeed, we already have in place a host of effective and popular social programs, from Social Security to Medicare to public schooling. Moreover, the available evidence suggests that rich nations can generate the tax revenues needed to pay for generous social programs while maintaining an innovative and growing economy, and without restricting liberty. Can it happen? Kenworthy describes how the US has been progressing slowly but steadily toward a genuine social democracy for nearly a century. Controversial and powerful, Social Democratic America shows that the good society doesn't require a radical break from our past; we just need to continue in the direction we are already heading.

The Primacy of Politics

The Primacy of Politics PDF Author: Sheri Berman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139457594
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Political history in the industrial world has indeed ended, argues this pioneering study, but the winner has been social democracy - an ideology and political movement that has been as influential as it has been misunderstood. Berman looks at the history of social democracy from its origins in the late nineteenth century to today and shows how it beat out competitors such as classical liberalism, orthodox Marxism, and its cousins, Fascism and National Socialism by solving the central challenge of modern politics - reconciling the competing needs of capitalism and democracy. Bursting on to the scene in the interwar years, the social democratic model spread across Europe after the Second World War and formed the basis of the postwar settlement. This is a study of European social democracy that rewrites the intellectual and political history of the modern era while putting contemporary debates about globalization in their proper intellectual and historical context.

The Social Democratic Moment

The Social Democratic Moment PDF Author: Sheri BERMAN
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674020847
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
In addition to revising our view of the interwar period and the building of European democracies, this book cuts against the grain of most current theorizing in political science by explicitly discussing when and how ideas influence political behavior. Even though German and Swedish Social Democrats belonged to the same transnational political movement and faced similar political and social conditions in their respective countries before and after World War I, they responded very differently to the challenges of democratization and the Great Depression--with crucial consequences for the fates of their countries and the world at large. Explaining why these two social democratic parties acted so differently is the primary task of this book. Berman's answer is that they had very different ideas about politics and economics--what she calls their programmatic beliefs. The Swedish Social Democrats placed themselves at the forefront of the drive for democratization; a decade later they responded to the Depression with a bold new economic program and used it to build a long period of political hegemony. The German Social Democrats, on the other hand, had democracy thrust upon them and then dithered when faced with economic crisis; their haplessness cleared the way for a bolder and more skillful political actor--Adolf Hitler. This provocative book will be of interest to anyone concerned with twentieth-century European history, the transition to democracy problem, or the role of ideas in politics.

The Age of Social Democracy

The Age of Social Democracy PDF Author: Francis Sejersted
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691242194
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
A history of how Norway and Sweden became the envy of the modern world This is the history of how two countries on the northern edge of Europe built societies in the twentieth century that became objects of inspiration and envy around the world. Francis Sejersted, one of Scandinavia's leading historians, tells how Norway and Sweden achieved a rare feat by realizing grand visions of societies that combine stability, prosperity, and social welfare. It is a history that holds many valuable lessons today, at a time of renewed interest in the Scandinavian model. The book tells the story of social democracy from the separation of Norway and Sweden in 1905 through the end of the century, tracing its development from revolutionary beginnings through postwar triumph, as it became a hegemonic social order that left its stamp on every sector of society, the economy, welfare, culture, education, and family. The book also tells how in the 1980s, partly in reaction to the strong state, a freedom and rights revolution led to a partial erosion of social democracy. Yet despite the fracturing of consensus and the many economic and social challenges facing Norway and Sweden today, the achievement of their welfare states remains largely intact.

The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay

The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay PDF Author: Emmanuel Saez
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324002735
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
“The most important book on government policy that I’ve read in a long time.” —David Leonhardt, New York Times Even as they have become fabulously wealthy, the ultra-rich have seen their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile, working-class Americans have been asked to pay more. The Triumph of Injustice presents a forensic investigation into this dramatic transformation, written by two economists who have revolutionized the study of inequality. Blending history and cutting-edge economic analysis, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman offer a comprehensive view of America’s tax system alongside a visionary, democratic, and practical reinvention of taxes.

America's Battle for Media Democracy

America's Battle for Media Democracy PDF Author: Victor Pickard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107038332
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Drawing from extensive archival research, the book uncovers the American media system's historical roots and normative foundations. It charts the rise and fall of a forgotten media-reform movement to recover alternatives and paths not taken.

The Triumph of Democracy in Spain

The Triumph of Democracy in Spain PDF Author: Paul Preston
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134951418
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
The Triumph of Democracy in Spain tells a gripping story of the tortuous creation of Spain's constitutional monarchy. The book provides an authoritative account of the tribulations of the forces of progress, beginning in 1969 with the disintegration of Franco's dictatorship and ending with the remarkable Socialist election victory in 1982.

The Socialist Manifesto

The Socialist Manifesto PDF Author: Bhaskar Sunkara
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786636921
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
The success of Jeremy Corbyn's left-led Labour Party and Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign revived a political idea many had thought dead. But what, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system look like today? In The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin magazine, argues that socialism offers the means to achieve economic equality, and also to fight other forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to healthcare, education, and housing and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities. The book both explores socialism's history and presents a realistic vision for its future. A primer on socialism for the 21st century, this is a book for anyone seeking an end to the vast inequities of our age.

Workers Control and Socialist Democracy

Workers Control and Socialist Democracy PDF Author: Carmen Sirianni
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789607272
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 566

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Book Description
Recent scholarship has rediscovered the genuinely mass character of the Bolshevik-led revolution that toppled Russian absolutism in 1917. In this major study, Carmen Sirianni undertakes a comprehensive study of the forms of popular power that emerged in the course of the struggle against Tsarist, and their destiny in the formative years of the new Soviet state. He successively discusses the factory committee movement, the attitudes of the trade unions and the left parties towards workers control, the unfolding of dual power, the tole of the peasantry, and the organization of labour and industry in the civil war. The developing theme of these chapters - the unsettled, often antagonistic relationship between working-class and peasant initiatives and demands and Bolshevik political and economic conceptions - is subjected to theoretical examination in the second part of the book. Here Sirianni analyses the particular constitution of Lenin's Marxism, and discerns in it a 'productivist evolutionism' which, he maintains, adversely affected the Bolsheviks' appreciation of working-class self-organization both in industry and in the exercise of political power, and vitiated their perception of the rural masses. Finally, Sirianni sets Russian policy and experience in its international context, considering the different, but also limited, views of Gramsci and Pannekoek, and the 'councilist' movements of Western Europe. He concludes with a reflection on the subsequent course of the revolutionary state and the options available to its leaders, as the defeat of the Left Opposition and then of Bukharin prepared the triumph of Stalinism. Workers Control and Socialist Democracy unites historical, political and theoretical judgement to make a fundamental contribution to our understanding, both of the Russian Revolution and of central unresolved issues of socialism in the twentieth century.