scholarly journals NEW LEFT RADICALISM AND POPULISM IN WESTERN EUROPE: WHAT'S NEW?

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 49-53
Author(s):  
S.A. Sergeev ◽  
◽  
S.V. Kuzmina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
New Left ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Party Members ◽  
The Government ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Moderate Policy ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

The article is devoted to the study of the features of the new left radicalism in Western Europe on the example of three parties: SYRIZA (Greece), "Unconquered France" (France) and "Podemos" (Spain). In 2012 - 2019 these three left-wing radical parties made a rapid political and electoral spurt. The first and main feature of these parties, which largely predetermined their successes, is populism. As an ideological platform, they chose left-wing populism in the form as it was justified by E. Laclau and consisting in the rejection of the class approach and in the persistent opposition of "we" - "they", "people" - "caste", "oligarchs" etc. The discursively constructed "people" are supposed to be honest, pure and poor, the "caste" or "oligarchy" is corrupted and depraved both politically, economically and morally. The second feature is the widespread use of Web 2.0, various digital technologies, platforms and social media, with the help of which thousands of party members could submit their proposals and discuss them. Rising on a wave of dissatisfaction with austerity policies, SYRIZA and Podemos were able to really participate in the formation of the government (and Unconquered France - to claim that its candidate would become one of the two or three main contenders for the presidency). However, radical socio-economic reforms are likely not included in the plans of the current Western European radical left. Judging by the rapid decline in the tone of the election campaigns, their goal was to oust and replace the existing Social Democratic parties (which SYRIZA succeeded in) and to pursue a moderate policy in a neo-Keynesian spirit.

scholarly journals The Demobilization of Class Politics in Denmark: The Social Democratic Party’s Group-Based Appeals 1961–2004

2018 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mads Thau
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
General Level ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Specific Level ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Abstract In Denmark, as in other Western European countries, the working class does not vote for social democratic parties to the same extent as before. Yet, what role did the social democratic parties themselves play in the demobilization of class politics? Building on core ideas from public opinion literature, this article differs from the focus on party policy positions in previous work and, instead, focuses on the group-based appeals of the Social Democratic Party in Denmark. Based on a quantitative content analysis of party programs between 1961 and 2004, I find that, at the general level, class-related appeals have been replaced by appeals targeting non-economic groups. At the specific level, the class-related appeals that remain have increasingly been targeting businesses at the expense of traditional left-wing groups such as wage earners, tenants and pensioners. These findings support a widespread hypothesis that party strategy was crucial in the decline of class politics, but also suggests that future work on class mobilization should adopt a group-centered perspective.

scholarly journals HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE OF COUNTERING YOUTH POLITICAL TERRORISM BY THE POLICE OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY AND CONCLUSIONS FOR PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA (TERROR GROUP ‘RED ARMY FRACTION’ TAKEN AS AN EXAMPLE)

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-11
Author(s):  
Ilya Leonidovich Morozov
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Red Army ◽  
The Government

‘Red Army Fraction’ is a youth extremist left-wing terror group that was active in the 1970–1980s on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany. The terror group and its ideology originated mostly in Western German university circles. Most representatives of the group were descendants from wealthy families of high social standing. The ideology of the group included a mix of concepts related to social equity, preventing autocratic tendencies in the government machinery and interventions of Western countries against developing ‘third world’ countries and peoples. State security system of West Germany was unable to suppress the terror group for over two decades. The group finally announced its voluntary dissolution in 1998 due to a dramatic change in socio-political climate and general crisis of the left-wing political ideology. The growth of oppositional sentiments among present-day Russian young people is partially similar to the students’ unrest that had place in Western Europe in the 1960s and gave rise to terrorist groups. This makes the study of West Germany’s experience in countering the threat important.

France’s Macron seeks to relaunch economic reforms

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Government Spending ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Youth Unemployment ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Fiscal Rules ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Government ◽  
Mandatory Vaccination

Significance Among those policies are measures targeted at youth unemployment and social care for older people, aimed at attracting left-wing support. Most importantly, Macron has committed to relaunching his controversial pension reforms, which triggered widespread social unrest in late 2019 and early 2020. Impacts Mandatory vaccination could trigger protests and legal action against the government. The centre-right Republicans could take support from Macron if they unite around a strong presidential candidate over the coming months. Macron will likely push for looser EU fiscal rules to facilitate more government spending beyond 2022.

The Rise of Challenger Parties

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-39
Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries ◽  
Sara B. Hobolt
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Government Experience ◽  
Degree Of Stability ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Right ◽  
Social Democratic Parties ◽  
Historical Origins

This chapter discusses the rise of challenger parties. Challenger parties are those parties that have not yet held the reins of power: the parties without government experience. There are three main ways of distinguishing between challengers and mainstream parties in the existing literature. One focuses on the historical origins of the parties, another focuses on the specific issues they mobilize, and the third focuses specifically on populism as a distinguishing feature. The chapter then presents three examples of “waves” of challenger parties over the past century (social democratic parties, green parties, and populist radical right parties) and explores the commonalities in the strategies these parties have pursued, despite their very different ideological outlooks. It also considers the evolution of party competition in postwar Western Europe, demonstrating both the remarkable degree of stability the established party families enjoyed for much of the postwar period and then the increasing fragmentation resulting from the strengthening of challengers on both the right and the left.

scholarly journals Globalization, Party Positions, and the Median Voter

2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Ward ◽  
Lawrence Ezrow ◽  
Han Dorussen
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Economic Globalization ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Right ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

The authors argue that the effects of economic globalization on social democratic parties in Western Europe are conditional on the position of the median voter. If the median is far enough to the right, such parties will adopt business-friendly policies because they are required to win office. Only when the median is relatively far to the left will globalization constrain social democratic parties, forcing them to adopt policies further to the right in order to retain credibility. It is on this basis the authors argue that empirical studies are misspecified unless they include an interaction between measures of globalization and the position of the median. In addition to presenting formal theoretical arguments, the article reports empirical findings from fifteen countries in the period from 1973 to 2002 that support the conclusion that the effects of globalization are indeed contingent on the median. The authors find that the effects of globalization are significant for social democratic parties only in circumstances in which the median is relatively far to the left.

Gerd Callesen, Socialist Internationals: A Bibliography of Publications of the Social-Democratic and Socialist Internationals, 1914–2000. Bonn and Gent: Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2001. 167 pp. Free of charge.

2004 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 173-175
Author(s):  
Reiner Tosstorff
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Association ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

This is a very useful bibliographical tool produced by the efforts of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI). This association comprises more than one hundred archives, libraries and research centers all over the world, though the vast majority are located in Europe, and not all of them have the same importance, reflecting the geographical and political unevenness of socialism's history. This particular volume aims to list all the publications of the social-democratic internationals after 1914, i.e. from the time of the political split due to the support for World War I by most social-democratic parties. This means that the left-wing, beginning with the Kienthal-Zimmerwald movement during the war and leading to the “Communist International” from 1919 on, is not represented here. But also left-wing splits from social democracy in later years, as in the 1930s with the “London Bureau” of left-wing socialist parties (and also the Bureau's predecessors) are excluded here, as they openly campaigned against social democracy. Also, a few international workers' institutions (mainly in the cultural field) that had been founded before 1914, but tried to maintain their independence after 1914 faced with the political split, are therefore not listed as well.

scholarly journals Political symbols and symbolic policy of the Western European left radical parties

2020 ◽  
pp. 172-189
Author(s):  
Sergei Sergeev
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Action ◽  
New Left ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Old Left ◽  
Agonistic Democracy ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Left Party

The concept of agonistic democracy put forward by Ch. Mouffe opposes both the understanding of political conflict as antagonistic, the parties of which regard each other as implacable enemies, and the actual denial of the conflict in the consensus theories of democracy. This concept, in which a political conflict is seen as a struggle between two opponents, each of which recognizes the legitimacy of the other, has found its implementation in the activities of new left-wing radical parties that have appeared in Western Europe over the past 10–15 years. Their appearance was a reaction to the crisis and the decline of most of the «old» left-wing radical parties that came after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. The «new» left-wing radicals seek to develop their own identity, which is different from the communist and socialdemocratic ones, which is also manifested in the new emblematic symbols they invent, which are not like the sickle, hammer, and five-pointed star of the «old» left-wing radicals, and in the new discursive strategies. On the example of the Podemos party (Spain), as well as the Left Party of France and the Party «Unconquered France», it is examined how the «new» left radicals construct the subject of political action – «people», «popular majority» or simply «We», opposed «Those above», «caste», «oligarchy». But with all the harshness of anti-capitalist and anti-liberal rhetoric, the conflict of «new» left-wing radicals with the system is more agonistic than antagonistic: they want not to destroy the old institutions, but to win them back from the opposite side, not to replace democracy with the dictatorship of the advanced class, but to «return» its people and expand it.

Social Protection, Capitalist Production

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Manow
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Wage Bargaining ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
Functional Logic ◽  
Functional Equivalent ◽  
The Government ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

The book provides a thorough analysis of the genealogy and the functional logic of German capitalism over the last 130 years. It addresses several puzzles of the existing literature, in particular how economic coordination proved possible and remained stable in a (big) country without prominent traits of neo-corporatism, without long government participation of social democratic parties, without centralized wage bargaining, without active economic steering by the government, under a “monetarist” regime, and under an allegedly liberal, namely “ordoliberal” economic policy. The central claim of the book is that the functional equivalent for all that was a “conservative-continental” welfare state which provided labor and capital with the organizational resources and the infrastructure to establish and maintain long-term economic coordination (of which we know that it is not-self-enforcing, i.e. that it needs institutional support). A better understanding of the German case, which can be seen as prototypical for other continental political economies as well, thus provides us also with a much better understanding of the different variants of coordinated market economies in northern, continental, and southern Europe, i.e. it provides us with a more profound Comparative Political Economy framework. This has important implications for contemporary debates on Germany’s role within international trade, and especially on its role within Europe and especially within the eurozone and its crisis. Much of the current debate, so the book claims, is based on an incomplete account of the functional logic of Modell Deutschland.

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