European Socialist Research Articles

The Foundations of the British Labour Party: Identities, Cultures and Perspectives, 1900-39. Edited by Matthew Worley.

In 1900, the Labour Party’s presence in parliament consisted of two Welshmen: Keir Hardie, often resplendent in tweed suit and deerstalker, and the rather less exotic Richard Bell. Yet, within a quarter of a century, Labour had established itself as a serious party of government. How are we to make sense of this remarkable advance? For Matthew Worley, the answer lies in understanding the ‘multiple character of Labour’ (p. 3). While three of the twelve essays in this volume focus chiefly on the familiar subject of Labour’s relations with the trade unions, contributors also analyse the party’s relationships with women, religion, intellectualism, the co-operative movement and European socialism, as well as its responses to anti-socialist propaganda. Such a wide-ranging approach has its merits. The reader cannot fail to be struck by the rich foundations which the Labour Party grew upon. Perhaps the evangelicalism of many of the party’s early activists should come as no surprise. As Jacqueline Turner shows, divisions between the political and religious functions of the labour movement were far from clear in the late Victorian period, when the Labour Church was able to draw significant congregations across urban Britain. The varied reasons why women chose to become Labour activists are explored in a perceptive chapter by June Hannam. Fortunately, we have come a long way since the days when Robert Skidelsky could describe Margaret Bondfield, the party’s first female Cabinet minister, as ‘typical of a certain class of spinsters who thronged the world of philanthropy’ and ‘a humourless and somewhat priggish person … with a voice that emitted a harsh cascade of sound’ (Politicians and the Slump, 1967, pp. 71–2). Hannam neatly side-steps this cruel caricature of the Socialist blue-stocking to demonstrate that women’s motivations for engaging in party activism were often rooted in material concerns which reflected the everyday needs of workers. And yet this was by no means a movement that forsook the intellectual, as Chris Wrigley and David Stack make evident. Labour drew heavily on new ideas emerging with European socialism. Exiles often acted as star speakers at May Day rallies in the 1890s and the Independent Labour Party published a range of translations of works by European socialists. Intriguingly, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 appears to have hampered such intellectual exchanges. As Laura Beers demonstrates, the popular appeal of Conservative anti-socialist scaremongering meant that Labour leaders took pains to dissociate themselves from the taint of ‘foreign’ Marxism after the Great War.

The Emergence of Exchange Politics in China and its Implications for Church–State Relations

The politics of efficiency characterised by economic growth alone cannot help to strengthen the legitimacy of the Chinese authorities, because people demand justice, equality and rights. The authorities have therefore introduced the politics of equity, in the form of exchange politics, and the ideology of a harmonious society. Under the new political order characterised by exchange relationships it is not an adequate understanding of Chinese religious policy to see it just as a matter of curbing the growth and influence of religion. In fact, the churches have relatively greater freedom and a greater public role than in the 1980s and 1990s. As the more dependent actor, the churches are still subjected to an authoritarian government. Nevertheless, the more dependent actor is not completely passive, for exchange relationships are always dynamic rather than static. In this paper I focus on Protestantism, and I suggest that the churches should seize this opportunity to work with the government for the common good, on condition that the churches are engaged in reframing the question of the legitimisation of the government by an involvement with the concerns of the people. The churches will need to use soft power rather than hard power, not only because exchange politics in China does not allow challenges to the authority of the government, but also because, unlike the churches in some former Eastern European socialist countries, the churches in China do not have much bargaining power.

Conference report: Prospects of a civil nuclear liability authority in the framework of the European Union

The long-awaited conference on perspectives considering a civil liability authority within the framework of the European Union took place at the premises of the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels on 17 and 18 June 2010. The conference was jointly organised by the European Commission (DG Energy) and the Brussels Nuclear Law Association, which is the regional branch of the International Nuclear Law Association. The reports outlines the salient points from the conference.

The European People's Party and the Party of European Socialists: Government and Opposition?

Since the introduction of direct elections for the European Parliament, the politics of this institution have presented a very low degree of adversarial confrontations amongst the two major European parties, the EPP and the PES. In the last round of elections, however, there have been signs of substantial change in direction of a more direct electoral confrontation between the PES and the EPP. According to the author, both the party manifestos and the strong political activity that preceded the nomination of the new President of the Commission signal the emergence of a sui-generis government-opposition relation between the two major parties in the European Parliament. This, still far from resembling the spirit of national politics, may represent the beginning of a new and more dynamic political confrontation around the European institutions.

A “New Republic”? The debate between John Dewey and Walter Lippmann and its reception in pre- and postwar Germany

This article tackles the historical context, the genesis and the German reception of two different concepts of elitist governmental people’s instruction and public education drafted by two main intellectuals in the era of American progressivism – Walter Lippmann (1889–1974), journalist and former spin doctor of US-President Wilson (1856–1924), and the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey (1859–1952). The examination of Lippmann’s books Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public (1925) and Dewey’s studies The Public and its Problems (1927) and Freedom and Culture (1939) reveals that both concepts are based on different notions of democracy, but on similar perceptions of modernity. Accelerated sequences of economic boom and depression, technological innovation, rapid social change and the seduction of mass media were seen as threats of public participation and of nationwide mobilization. These pessimistic notions of modernity as well as their implicit interactive perceptions of European socialism, nationalism and fascism facilitated the reception of Dewey and Lippmann in Germany. In doing so, German communication scientists, intellectuals, and pedagogues transformed terms like political leadership, community, action and creativity into the German context of nationalism and holistic community. But is this adoption a misreading or is this interpretation injected in the concept of both, Dewey and Lippmann? The comparison and reconstruction of these two concepts will show that their reception in Germany after 1945 was an amalgamation by intermingling different aspects of both models instead of a clear takeover of one model.

Socialism as an African Social and Political Philosophy: Senghor’s Paradigm

The paper interrogates the meanings and practices of African political thoughts, especially the theory put forward by Leopold Sedar Senghor. What is the distinguishing factor of African Socialism? What is the direction of African socio-political philosophy? What is the African conception of man that determines the socio-political theory? It is in an attempt to answer these and other related questions that the paper is written. We argue that Socialism is socialism; there cannot be anything like African Socialism, European Socialism, American Socialism and even Scientific Socialism. This is because socialism is based on two premises: (i) Equity (ii) Non-exploitation. These are value-laden, moral and non-scientific. Socialism can be applied as a means of economic, social and political advancement in any society. Although situation and condition may differ but the basic productive and distributive principles remain the same.

Arnold in Aysheshok, Schiller in Shnipishok: Imperatives of “Culture” in East European Jewish Nationalism and Socialism

When the February Revolution of 1917 unfettered public life across the Russian Empire, hundreds of thousands threw themselves into activism on behalf of numerous, conflicting visions of political, social, and cultural transformation. Although histories of the Russian Revolution still resonate with tropes of 1917 as rupture, most of these activists initially greeted February as a chance to realize programs born well before 1917, in the decades preceding the Revolution. Among the divided multitude of whom this was true was twenty-two-year-old Natan Bistritsky. Raised in a small, heavily Jewish town in the Ukraine and vouchsafed a traditional Jewish education, Bistritsky had broken with the world of Eastern Europe’s distinctive pietistic Judaism as an adolescent. He embraced instead two closely linked, self-consciously modern ideals: Jewish political nationalism and a secular nationalist vision of Jewish cultural reformation. Now, first in Moscow and then, by early 1918, in Kiev, he worked for Russia’s resurgent Zionist movement and for a Hebraist cultural movement that sought to create a modern Hebrew-language culture and transform Russia’s variegated Jewish population into a nation of secular Hebrews. Bistritsky—he would later assume a Hebrew name, Agmon, as the culmination of his own Hebraist self-transformation—was charged with bringing these ideals to the swelling Jewish populations of these metropoles, where small, Russified Jewish bourgeoisies were now swamped by tens of thousands of Jewish war refugees and

Western Communists, Mikhail Gorbachev and the 1989 Revolutions

AbstractWestern communists reflected two opposing responses to the final crisis of communism that had matured over time. The French communists represented a conservative response increasingly hostile to Gorbachev's perestroika, while the Italians were supporters of a reformist response in tune with his call for change. Thus Gorbachev was the chief reference, positive or negative, against which Western communists measured their own politics and identity. In 1989 the French aligned with the conservative communist leaderships of eastern Europe, and ended up opposing Gorbachev after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Accordingly, the PCF became a residual entity of traditional communism. On the other hand, the Italian communists agreed with all Gorbachev's choices, and to some extent they even inspired his radical evolution. But they also shared Gorbachev's illusions, including the idea that the fall of the Berlin Wall would produce a renewal of socialism in Europe. Unlike the PCF, the PCI was able to undertake change in the aftermath of the 1989 revolutions, thus standing as a significant ‘post-communist’ force. However, if conservative communism was destined to become marginal, reform communism also failed in its objective of renewing the Soviet system and the communist political culture

Bailey’s social entropy theory as an explicit theoretical approach for an empirical assessment of security of contemporary societies

The aim of the article, based on my doctoral thesis (Mitar, Theoretical and Methodological comparison of selected approaches for assessment of security of modern society, Ph.D. Dissertation, 2005), is to present my slight modification of Bailey’s SET as an explicit theoretical approach for an empirical assessment of security of contemporary societies. I formed a model D=f(PLOTIS), in which component D was defined (various deviant or unwanted phenomena—in present article measured by the number of deaths in violent conflicts), which was conditioned by macro-societal factors (Population, Level-of-living, Organisation, Technology, Information, Space), denoted by acronym PLOTIS. The model is tested by cross-sectional design, 19 (non-random) chosen former European socialist countries are compared, available secondary data at the end of a period of transition (1989–2002) are used. The model is tested by different methods of analysis: descriptive statistics, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and descriptive discriminant analysis (DDA). The comparison of results acquired by different methods confirmed usefulness of the modified SET as starting point for formation and testing of hypotheses about the influence of macro-societal characteristics (measured by PLOTIS) on unwanted phenomena. Last but not least, some proposals for further research are presented.

Should Private Equity Be Regulated?

Private equity has become a multi-trillion dollar business in recent years, but its rapid growth has been accompanied by public controversy and calls for regulation. I review the policy debate, from voluntary best practice codes of UK private equity firms to proposals for supervision and control by continental European socialists, and analyse the economic case for regulation. I find little evidence of market failure and strong arguments for private ordering by investors, banks and labour unions, who appear to have both the ability and the incentives to safeguard against managerial conflicts of interest, excessive debt and other maladies. In contrast, it is doubtful whether politicians have sufficient information to fine-tune activity in this area, and more or less unpredictable policy changes may cause significant harm to business confidence. Altogether, the case for regulation is weak. However, if political pressures to ‘do something’ are overwhelming, as they currently appear to be, greater disclosure and transparency may be the least costly alternative.

The Korean War in European Social Studies Textbooks

This paper examines how European social studies textbooks deal with the Korean War. The Korean War is not only a major Korean topic covered in foreign textbooks, but it is also an important historical event for European countries as tensions rose in the face of the entrenchment of the Cold War. This paper divides Europe into three regions: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and other European countries. The analysis shows that instead of three different views on the Korean War based upon region, each country has a different emphasis and way of narrating. Textbooks are an important medium in which official ideology and politics are reflected. Even if various perspectives on the Korean War exist, the mainstream view of each country, which is expressed in the textbooks, reflects the knowledge approved by the state.

The Effect of Union Type on Work-Life Conflict in Five European Countries

This paper explores the strategies for reconciling family and work in different union types. The focus here is on investigating how cohabiting and married individuals perceive the work-life conflict in different European countries. To test the union type impact on work-life balance in the context of different societal conditions, this paper draws on 2004 ESS data from Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, Slovenia and Estonia (European Social Survey 2004). The pooled country data are examined to analyze the association between work-life conflict and socio-demographic, as well as family-level characteristics of individuals. The findings did not demonstrate uniform differences in the work-life conflict of married and cohabiting couples. However, a higher degree of work-life conflict among Swedish cohabiting women was still significant when controlling for individual characteristics, household composition and working conditions.

The Bomb, Bhadralok, Bhagavad Gita, and Dan Breen: Terrorism in Bengal and Its Relation to the European Experience

This article will analyze several issues relating to terrorism in colonial India, focusing on the province of Bengal from the early 1900s to the mid-1930s. First, I will analyze the composition of Bengali revolutionary organizations. Although Bengali revolutionary terrorism was not a mass movement, I argue that there was greater diversity in the movement's social and religious composition, and in the outlook of its members, than is often assumed. Second, I will examine the question of indigenous versus foreign influences on Indian terrorism. Terrorism in Bengal and elsewhere in colonial India was diverse in its inspirations, drawing upon indigenous resistance to colonial rule, and Hindu religious imagery, as well as European anarchist, nationalist, and socialist movements. Lastly, I will consider some of the ways in which the revolutionary movement changed over its thirty-year history and conclude with a brief discussion of the colonial response to Bengali terrorism. Bengali terrorists' adaptation and re-fashioning of ideas and tactics in a colonial context illustrate the widespread networks of exchange within the British Empire.

Can Cuba Change? Tensions in the Regime

Abstract: Relative to other twentieth-century totalitarian experiments, the Cuban regime has developed a special mix of control, mobilization, and harassment. Since the crushing of internal opposition in the 1960s, the regime has created a system of “vertical” controls that concentrate power in the hands of the state and “disempower” and “direct” society, while in the process diminishing alternative or horizontal information flows, contacts, organizations, and solidarity networks. Over the past fifteen years, the regime has moved from full totalitarianism to a more transitional “charismatic post-totalitarianism.” Since Fidel Castro fell ill in 2006, the trend toward posttotalitarianism has deepened, and the pending question now is whether the Cuban regime will “mature” into this phase, or move toward another regime type. Although the transfer of power from Fidel to Raúl has been relatively uneventful, potential divisions within the ruling elite, especially between the military and the Party, are likely to emerge before too long.

EUROPEAN DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM, MULTICULTURALISM AND THE THIRD WAY

The tradition of European democratic socialism continues to be central to current debates in respect of the provision of comprehensive forms of education in the British national context. Focusing on the writing of Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams I outline their different if related attempts to rethink the provision of ‘public’ forms of education. Through an analysis of their distinctive contributions the argument seeks to defend the importance of ideals related to the common good and solidarity with the urban poor. In this article, I argue that Anthony Giddens's ideas in respect of the third way have sought to rethink the relationship between democratic socialism and education. While disputing the view that the third way can be dismissed as a form of neo-liberalism, I seek to defend less market-based forms of education and ideals related to self-development. The danger here remains that the third way gives up too much ground to neo-liberal attempts to reshape society and education in the image of the market place. Finally I argue that democratic socialist arguments need to be revived in more contemporary settings while being rethought through more multicultural concerns. Yet while such a political strategy is necessary to develop an alternative hegemony on questions of education it is likely to be reliant upon the emergence of a robust European socialist and multicultural left.

Service users' perceptions of the effective ingredients in supported employment

Background: The UK government is advocating the use of supported employment to help people on incapacity benefits back to work, with an emphasis on Individual Placement and Support (IPS) models. However there is little UK-based evidence on the key ingredients of effective support.Aim: To ascertain service users' views of what they found helpful about supported employment.Method: Interviews were carried out with 182 people with severe and enduring mental health problems who were actively engaged with one of the six supported employment agencies included in the study.Results: Three themes emerged: emotional support, practical assistance and a client-centred approach.Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of the quality of support, particularly through interpersonal dynamics, which go beyond the organizational features emphasized in the IPS model.Declaration of interest: The study was financed from Higher Education European Social Fund Objective 3 resources and the six partner agencies made contributions in kind.

Variations in relative health inequalities: are they a mathematical artefact?

BackgroundSubstantial research has documented variations in the magnitude of relative socioeconomic differences in health across European countries, and within countries, across different age groups. The aim of this paper is to examine to what extent these variations are determined by differences in the overall rate or prevalence of a health outcome across countries and age-groups in the total population.MethodsThree surveys (European Social Survey, and two different population census-mortality registry linked longitudinal data) were used. We plotted rates of mortality and prevalence of poor self-rated health against ratios of mortality and morbidity prevalence associated with educational level. We calculated Pearson coefficients to examine the magnitude of correlations.ResultsWe found a significant negative correlation between total mortality rates and associated rate ratios of mortality by education in the SEDHA study (r = -0.40, p = 0.04), but not in the HUNT study (r = -0.37, p = 0.06). There was a weaker but significant negative correlation between the prevalence of poor health and associated prevalence ratios by education in the European social survey (r = -0.22, p = 0.00). Correlations increased as underlying prevalence and rates increased, while they were weaker or null at low prevalence or rates.ConclusionWe found some evidence that the magnitude of relative inequalities in mortality and morbidity is negatively correlated with underlying morbidity prevalence and mortality rates. Although correlations are moderate, underlying morbidity prevalence and mortality rates should be taken into account in the interpretation of variations in relative health inequalities among populations.

Labour and the Politics of Internationalism, 1906-1914

Historians have traditionally characterized the early Labour party as an insular, ‘labourist’ organization out of sync with the mainstream of European socialism and indifferent to foreign affairs and internationalism. However, this perspective is deeply misguided, as Labour's ‘Big Four’—MacDonald, Snowden, Hardie and Glasier—used their positions of authority in the Labour Party, Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the British Section of the International to place foreign policy and socialist internationalism at the heart of their efforts to further the Labour alliance. This article explores two aspects of the ‘politics of internationalism’: first, the Labour leadership's use of socialist internationalism to legitimate the Labour alliance with trade unions in the face of criticism from the ILP left wing; second, the party's portrayal of itself as a more faithful exponent of a Gladstonian moral foreign policy than the Liberal government. Labour and the ILP were crucial allies in the revisionist and pragmatic wing of the Second International, and these ties allowed the ‘Big Four’ to portray the Labour coalition as in keeping with democratic socialist strategy in Europe. At the same time, historians should explore the possibility that Labour's parliamentary and public interventions on foreign affairs aimed to undermine Liberalism on its left flank by exploiting radical concerns over the Liberal government's foreign policy, particularly its dealings with Russia, to portray Labour as the defenders of the Gladstonian tradition in foreign affairs and, hence, as the only conscionable choice for progressives in the twentieth century.

Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship

The article considers a significant global issue – gender gap starting and developing own business. The field of business was for a long time reserved to men, thus, despite of an increasing number of female entrepreneurs during last decade, the number of female entrepreneurs in Europe, including Lithuania, remains lower than the one of male entrepreneurs. According to the data of various statistical sources, an average ratio of enterprises newly established by men and women in EU countries is about 70% and 30% (European Economic and Social Committee, 2007). Especially in developing countries where gender stereotypes formed through long decades (women’s main role is to be wife and mother) are treated as one of the most important obstacles preventing women to start their own business. Business development, achievements in work environment such as successful carrier, increased personal influence and prestige in society, in contrast with simple job, require conditionally great personal commitment which according to various sources of literature (Nordic Innovation Centre (2007); M. Minniti (2003); P. Tominc, M. Rebernik (2006)) is more acceptable to men than women. Moreover, it is supposed that own business often puts to shade personal private life; therefore it is more associated to men than women. Going deep into the field was also encouraged by the discovery that the analysed literature lacks more detailed discussion of factors that determine the emergence of gender gap in perspective of business establishment. Scientists point out various factors, attach them to various groups, however, little attention is paid to the impact of those factors to existing gender gap. At present, literature does not have an answer to such questions as: “Why do differences exist?“, “What causes them?“. The aim of the article – to determine differences of gender gap in entrepreneurship – is to review the reasons provided in literature explaining the emergence of gender gap when starting own business, to analyse and point out the factors which positively or negatively influence the behaviour of men and women in business and also, on the grounds of expert evaluation, to perform a comparative study of gender gap in entrepreneurship in Lithuania. Having performed an analysis of scientific literature, the conclusion was made that the theories of feminism and discrimination, changes of demographic factors, different value systems and various other factors best explain the prevailing gender differences between men and women. In order to systemise different factors influencing gender gap, the article provides such factor groups as cultural, organisational, economic, demographic, psychological, technological, institutional and political factors. Also the factors that influence the differences of men and women in business in three ways (increase, decrease and neutral) are excluded. Having completed a comparative analysis of gender differences in entrepreneurship, the conclusion was made that the gender differences discussed and analysed in literature are relevant also to Lithuanian entrepreneurs. An expert survey revealed that enterprises managed by men are bigger, exist longer than the ones managed by women; however, the fields of business establishment of both men and women are very similar. It is important to note that the theory emphasises different value systems of genders in obvious practise.

European governance and democracy: power and protest in the EU

Contient : Approaching Collective Action ; Collective Action and Civil Society in Europe ; The Making of a Polity: Interests' Mobilization around European Institutions ; European Integration and Varieties of Capitalism: The Brussels Consensus; The European Burden: Unemployment and Political Behavior ; Beyond State Building: Centres and Peripheries in the European Union ; Collective Action and New Rights ; Interests' Mobilization in the constitutionalization of Europe ; The Regulation of Interest Groups in the European Union ; European Democracy and Social Justice