scholarly journals Populism as an intra-party phenomenon: The British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jake Watts ◽  
Tim Bale
Keyword(s):  
Labour Party ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The People ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn

This article seeks to demonstrate that the concept of populism can help us to understand the dynamics of intra-party politics. This argument is made via a case study of the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected as its leader in late 2015. Corbynism as a (highly personalistic) political phenomenon has relied, in its resistance to opposition from more moderate MPs to Labour’s leftward turn, upon the idea that the party’s members are ‘the people’. This idea links to notions of the ‘heartland’ members occupy, the elite conspiracy against them and the democratic resolution made possible by the leader. Analysing how the rise of populist politics affects politics within parties, as well as between them, may, the article argues, help account for the populist transformation of established parties. This transformation, in turn, is one way in which populist discourse may infuse a country’s politics, permanently or otherwise.

scholarly journals THE LABOUR PARTY AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF MINDS: THE CASE OF TONY CROSLAND

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEREMY NUTTALL
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Broad Concept ◽  
British Labour ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ability And Willingness

This article uses the broad concept of ‘improvement of minds’ to refer to the idea of improving people's sense of morality, their ability and willingness to reason, and the depth of their emotional experiences. Such an objective has been little explored in the context of the history of the British Labour party. Yet, discussion of it is worth integrating into histories of the party for two reasons. First, the goal of improving minds was a strand – though often unsystematically developed – in the agendas of many Labour party politicians, activists, and thinkers. Secondly, the very fact that it was an unsystematically developed strand, the very limits of the party's attention to, and success in achieving, ‘mental progress’ amongst the twentieth-century British population – that is to say, simply, the limits to the party's pursuit and achievement of the objective of making people more caring, rational, and sensitive – is one important explanation for many of Labour's failures. The article begins to explore the aims, processes, and outcomes of Labour's attempts to improve minds, as well as to explain and examine the consequences of the limits of the party's attention to this goal, through the case study of Tony Crosland.

scholarly journals The Formation and the Evolution of the British Labour Party

2018 ◽  
pp. 50-62
Author(s):  
Olha Buturlimova
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Development ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Party System ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Xxth Century ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Individual

The article examines the processes of organizational development of the British Labour Party in the early XXth century, the evolution of the party structure and political programme in the twentieths of the XXth century. Special attention is paid to researching the formation of the Social Democratic Federation, Fabian Society and Independent Labour Party till the time of its joining to the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 and adopting the “Labour Party” name in 1906. The author’s aim was to comprehensively investigate the political manifests and activities of those organizations on the way of transformation from separate trade-unions and socialist groups to apparent union of labour, and then to the mass and wide represented parliamentary party. However, the variety of social base of those societies is distinguished, and difference of socialist views and tactics of achieving the final purpose are emphasized. Considerable attention is paid to the system of the individual membership and results thereof in the process of the evolution of the Labour Party’s organization. The reorganization of the Labour party in 1918, Representation of the People Act, 1918 and the crisis in the Liberal party were favourable for the further evolution of the Labour Party. It is summarized that the social base, the history of party’s birth, the conditions of formation and the party system had influenced the process of the evolution of the ideological and political concepts of Labourizm.

scholarly journals Olha Buturlimova. British Labour Party in the 1920s: the electoral competition

2018 ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Olha Buturlimova
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The People ◽  
Election Manifestos ◽  
British Labour ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
New Social Order

The article examines the processes of growth of the British Labour Party in the early XXth century. The reasons of Labour Party’s success on parliamentary and municipal elections in the 1920s have been analyzed. The main attention is paid to the party’s activities in constituencies and analysis of Labour Party General Election Manifestos, General Elections Results and other statistic data. The relations between the Labour Party and churches in Great Britain have also been investigated. The support of the Anglican Church and denominations in Great Britain gave the Labour Party some votes but they lost some votes of believers in the next election in 1924 because of Labour government’s failure to acknowledge Bolshevik persecution of the Christians in the USSR. The Labour attempts to win the countryside were also not so fruitful. It is emphasized that 1918 was the turning point in the formation of the Labour Party as mass, widely represented and influential parliamentary party. The reorganization of the Labour party in 1918, Representation of the People Act (1918), adoption of the “Labour and the New Social Order” party constitution have proved to be favorable for its further evolution. But some difficulties such as conflicts between left and right views in the party, absence of convincing majority, black mass-media technologies from political opponents and problems in economics of the country, seriously influenced on its abilities to win success in 1920-s.

The British Example

2021 ◽  
pp. 142-163
Author(s):  
Jonathan Fox ◽  
Lev Topor
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn

In order to place the empirical findings of this study into a more concrete context, in this chapter the authors examine the United Kingdom as a case study, using traditional comparative politics qualitative methodology. They examine the history of anti-Semitism and discrimination against Jews in the United Kingdom, focusing on the religious, anti-Zionist, and conspiracy-based explanations in this context. They demonstrate that it is plausible to argue that all three of these motives have caused discrimination against Jews in the United Kingdom. The chapter also discusses briefly the allegations of anti-Semitism by the Labour Party in recent years, specifically under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

scholarly journals “Peculiarities” versus “Exceptions”: The Shaping of the American Federation of Labor's Politics during the 1890s and 1900s

2000 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neville Kirk
Keyword(s):  
Labour Party ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Traditional Form ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
British Labour

The purpose of this article is to question the notion of US labour's “exceptionalism” – of its “conservatism” and “closure” and difference from “class-conscious” and “socialist” British and European labour – with specific reference to the politics of the American Federation of Labour during the 1890s and 1900s. An approach rooted in the assumption of “norms” and “exceptions” is rejected in favour of one exploring differences and similarities. In terms of similarities, the article demonstrates the ways in which the AF of L consciously sought to model its “independent” (i.e. nonpartisan–party) politics upon the practice of the late-Victorian British TUC. With respect to differences, the article then proceeds to chart the challenges posed to the AF of L by the growing identification within British labour of political independence with independent partyism, as manifested especially in the TUC's official endorsement of the Labour Representation Committee (1900) and the Labour Party (1906). Resistant to the adoption of the new “British road”, the AF of L nevertheless defended its “traditional” form of political independence far more in terms of experiential US “peculiarities” than “exceptionalist” structural determinations.

Shahbag Stolen? Third Force Dynamics and Electoral Politics in Bangladesh

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1S-24S ◽  
Author(s):  
Anupam Debashis Roy
Keyword(s):  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Force Dynamics ◽  
The People ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
The Impact

The Shahbag Movement, demanding capital punishment for war criminals of the 1971 liberation war in Bangladesh, emerged in February 2013 in Dhaka. This youth-led grassroots movement erupted in response to infuriating establishment party politics as a populist third force, wanting closure to the painful memories of Bangladesh’s freedom struggle by seeking justice for the atrocities of 1971. However, perceived as siding with secular forces, Shahbag became instantly embroiled in adversarial party politics and appears to have been hijacked, as is argued here, by both major political parties of Bangladesh.  Evaluating Shahbag as a case study for the framing tasks theory of social movements, the article supports its analysis through detailed empirical findings. Viewed historically, Shahbag may be treated as an initially powerful grassroots youth movement, akin to ‘Arab Spring’ phenomena, later stolen from the people of Bangladesh. However, a deeper analysis of Shahbag’s dynamics, accounting for the impact of the controversial national elections of January 2014, yields crucial insights about the continuing scope for a ‘third force’ in the forthcoming elections scheduled for December 2018.

scholarly journals ‘I Wanted More Women in, but . . .’: Oblique Resistance to Gender Equality Initiatives

2020 ◽  
pp. 095001702093687
Author(s):  
Owain Smolović Jones ◽  
Sanela Smolović Jones ◽  
Scott Taylor ◽  
Emily Yarrow
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
The People ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Positive Discrimination ◽  
Patriarchal Power ◽  
Practical Implications

Despite many interventions designed to change the gender demographics of positional leadership roles in organizations and professions, women continue to be under-represented in most arenas. Here we explore gender equality (GE) interventions through the example of positive discrimination quotas in politics to develop an understanding of resistance to them. Our case is the British Labour Party, analysing interviews with the people who designed, implemented and resisted the system of all-women shortlists. We develop the notion of ‘oblique resistance’ to describe an indirect form of resistance to the erosion of patriarchal power, which never directly confronts the issue of GE, yet actively undermines it. Oblique resistance is practised in three key ways: through appeals to ethics, by marking territory and in appeals to convention. We conclude by considering the conceptual and practical implications of oblique resistance, when direct and more overt resistance to GE is increasingly socially unacceptable.

scholarly journals Comparing the Dynamics of Party Leadership Survival in Britain and Australia: Brown, Rudd and Gillard

2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bennister ◽  
Tim Heppell
Keyword(s):  
Labour Party ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Labor Party ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Gordon Brown ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Relative Neglect ◽  
Strategic Options ◽  
Formal Procedures

This article examines the interaction between the respective party structures of the Australian Labor Party and the British Labour Party as a means of assessing the strategic options facing aspiring challengers for the party leadership. Noting the relative neglect within the scholarly literature of forced exits that occur and attempted forced exits that do not occur, this article takes as its case study the successful forced exits of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, and the failure to remove Gordon Brown. In doing so the article challenges the prevailing assumption that the likely success of leadership evictions are solely determined by the leadership procedures that parties adopt. Noting the significance of circumstances and party cultures, the article advances two scenarios through which eviction attempts can be understood: first, forced exits triggered through the activation of formal procedures (Rudd and Gillard); second, attempts to force an exit by informal pressures beyond the formal procedures which are overcome by the incumbent (Brown).

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