Religion and Politics

British Gods ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 228-251
Author(s):  
Steve Bruce
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Rapid Rise ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Anti Semitism

In Catholic Europe, progressive and working-class politics have often been anti-religious. In Britain, class conflict was often expressed within, rather than against, Christianity, with the Labour Party having deep roots in dissenting movements such as the Methodists. This chapter details such class connections and associated regional movements (such as the anti-English appeal of the Welsh chapels). It considers Muslim involvement in the Labour Party and the roots of anti-Semitism. The rapid rise and fall of the Christian Party and the Christian People’s Alliance are used to test the electoral popularity of conservative socio-moral positions. An apparent connection between identifying as Church of England and BREXIT-era xenophobia is demonstrated to be largely a matter of nostalgia: regular churchgoers are more likely than nominal identifiers to be pro-European Union and sympathetic to immigrants.

scholarly journals Relations Between Labour Party and Christian Churches in England at the End of XIX – the First Third of the XX cc.

2019 ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Olha Buturlimova
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
British Society ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
British Labour

The article traces the responses of the Church of England, Roman – Catholic Church and “free churches” on the development of the Labour Party. The author underlines that Labour party was assisted by those Christian churches. It is mentioned also that Labour Church and Ethic Church as Labour supporters too. The article touches upon such problems as social inequality in British society, secularization of the working class in urban cotton towns and ports. Anglican Church’s help to the low-income working class is investigated also. The author underlines that British Labour party was deeply influenced by Christian Socialism so it made its relations with Church of England closer. Chaplains supported the Labour party in their sermons, letters and church press. Such favour was especially crucial in rural areas where Labour party had lower election results in comparison with Liberal and Conservative parties. The author analyses contribution of the “free churches” to the development of the Labour party. It is widely recognized that “free churches” are identified as traditional ally of the Liberal party. The author confirmed that “free churches” did not give wide electoral support to the Labour party but gave considerable amount of candidates who were active in trade unions, local Labour parties and in the British Parliament. The author also considers that the Roman – Catholic communities mainly represented by Irish immigrants and their descendants as an important part of the wide social base of the Labour Party. The author comes to conclusion that strong ties between Christian churches and the British Labour party help us to explain its program and election successes in the first third of the XX century.

The Failure of the Radical Left in Switzerland

1986 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID E. BOHN
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
High Tide ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

Despite dramatic economic transformation in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, radical working-class politics has never become an institutionalized part of Swiss political life as it has among its neighbors France, Italy and Germany. Nor did class conflict produce in Switzerland a deeply fragmented and compartmentalized society such as is found in other small European Democracies. It is argued that decentralized social, economic and political institutions; moderate and continuous rates of economic development; cross-cutting cleavages and overlapping group affiliations; small size, and to a lesser extent political neutrality contributed to Switzerland's relatively calm “class struggle.” It is further noted that these explanations seem to fit the Swiss case best when enveloped in Lipset and Rokkan's developmental thesis of European cleavage development, in which it is argued that nineteenth and twentieth century political institutions are more able to mediate class conflict successfully when not burdened by the residue of the unresolved political conflicts of earlier periods in the development of the modern political state. In sum, by the time working-class politics reached high tide in Switzerland, most nation building issues had been resolved, and effective democratic processes had been firmly put in place.

The Beginning of Labor's End? Britain's “Winter of Discontent” and Working-Class Women's Activism

2009 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara Martin
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
National Union ◽  
Level Of Involvement ◽  
Labor Activism ◽  
To Come ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
Wage Increases

AbstractIn the midst of the freezing winter of 1978 and 1979, strikes erupted across Britain. In what became infamously known as the “Winter of Discontent,” workers struck against the Labour Government's attempts to curtail wage increases. The defeat of this “incomes policy” and Labour's subsequent electoral defeat ushered in an era of unprecedented political, economic, and social change for Britain. Conservative victory, under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, not only seemed to signal the dissolution of “traditional” working-class ties to the Labour Party, it also suggested that British working-class politics might finally be on its last leg. Furthermore, a potent social myth developed around the Winter of Discontent, one where “bloody-minded” workers brought down a sympathetic government and “invited” the ravages of Thatcherism upon the British labor movement.Absent from these various narratives are the experiences of rank-and-file activists, in particular, the growing number of female trade unionists active in these strikes. This article examines the experiences of a group of women trade unionists from the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) who participated in the strikes of the Winter of Discontent. Based on oral histories and corresponding archival material, it argues that the Winter of Discontent provided a crucial “rite of passage” for these women, one which exposed them to an unprecedented level of involvement in grassroots labor activism and leadership. Thereafter, these working-class women began to make significant inroads into NUPE and the Labour Party, which helped to make working women's issues more central to the British labor movement for decades to come. Therefore, rather than being the death knell of British working-class politics, this study of women involved in the Winter of Discontent strikes reveals that while one form of working-class politics was in decline, a reconfigured one was in the process of being born.

State and Labour in Argentina: The Portworkers of Buenos Aires, 1910–21

1993 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Adelman
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Class Formation ◽  
Social Revolution ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Political Turmoil

Latin America's workers perplex historians. Despite chronic political turmoil, revolt and undiluted class conflict, Latin America's mobilised workers have not been the vanguards of social revolution. Rather, variations of authoritarianism, populism and clientilism are said to characterise labour politics more accurately. The absence of independent working-class politics has prompted the search for aetiologies of class-formation in Latin America – the search for the missing ingredient to revolutionary working-class action.

Justifying Islamophobia

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Allen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
European Level ◽  
Grassroots Politics ◽  
Monitoring Centre ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
New Development ◽  
The Media ◽  
Political Landscapes

Immediately prior to the events of 9/11, the United Nations (UN) officially recognized the proliferating climate of anti- Muslim and anti-Islamic prejudice, discrimination, and hatred –Islamophobia – as being as equally repellent and unwanted as anti-Semitism and other global discriminatory phenomena. The 9/11 tragedy, however, somewhat overshadowed this recognition, resulting in the continued proliferation of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiment and expression. This study explores how and why Islamophobia was manifested following 9/11, contextualizes how elite voices across British and European societies have considered Islamophobia to be fair and justified. In considering the wider findings of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s monitoring of Islamophobia, this study explores how “visual identifiers” have underpinned changes in attitude and reactions to Muslims across the fifteen European Union (EU) member nations at a largely pan-European level. The second section develops these ideas, analyzing three of the report’s primary themes – Muslim visuality, political landscapes (incorporating institutional political elites as well as grassroots politics), and the media – each one approached from the perspective of the United Kingdom. This study concludes by suggesting that 9/11 has made Islamophobia more acceptable, which has enabled its expressions, inferences, and manifestations to locate a newer and possibly more prevalent societal resonance and acceptability. Ultimately, this new development goes some way to justifying Islamophobia and negating the UN’s recognition of this problem.

Mary Barton

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Gaskell
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Elizabeth Gaskell ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Deep Sympathy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Class Community

‘It's the masters as has wrought this woe; it's the masters as should pay for it.’ Set in Manchester in the 1840s - a period of industrial unrest and extreme deprivation - Mary Barton depicts the effects of economic and physical hardship upon the city's working-class community. Paralleling the novel's treatment of the relationship between masters and men, the suffering of the poor, and the workmen's angry response, is the story of Mary herself: a factory-worker's daughter who attracts the attentions of the mill-owner's son, she becomes caught up in the violence of class conflict when a brutal murder forces her to confront her true feelings and allegiances. Mary Barton was praised by contemporary critics for its vivid realism, its convincing characters and its deep sympathy with the poor, and it still has the power to engage and move readers today. This edition reproduces the last edition of the novel supervised by Elizabeth Gaskell and includes her husband's two lectures on the Lancashire dialect.

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