Left Political Parties Research Articles

Second-generation immigrants and native attitudes toward immigrants in Europe

Abstract This article investigates the role immigrants and their native-born children play in shaping native attitudes toward immigrants in the European Union. By exploiting the 2017 Special Eurobarometer on immigrant integration, we show that countries with a relatively high share of immigrants are more likely to believe that immigrants are a burden on the welfare system and worsen crime. In contrast, native opinions on the impact of immigration on culture and the labor market are unrelated to the presence of immigrants. We also find that the effects of second-generation immigrants on pro-immigrant attitudes toward security and fiscal concerns are positive (as opposed to first-generation immigrants). Finally, we find no impact of the immigrant share on the attitudes of natives supporting far-left or left political parties, while it is the most negative among respondents affiliated with far-right parties.

Left Political Parties of Assam: Challenges and Prospects

The left political parties of Assam are playing a vital role in the election politics which have participated in Parliamentary and Assembly elections since independence. During the long journey of election politics of India and Assam, the left parties are passing through a trajectory mode where their support base quite satisfactory up to 1978. Later, the support base is reduced tremendously with decline of vote sharing. Being the ideologically strong political parties, the left have lost its support from the electorates due to certain shortcomings. Thus, this paper is an academic exercise to identify the factors responsible for the chronic decline of left political parties in Assam’s electoral politics. Further, this study is intended to identify the prospect of left political parties of Assam in future elections. The prospects leading to revival of left parties of Assam in the future are considered important because of the success of democracy. The conglomeration of different factors prominence to revitalize the Marxist ideology against capitalist system is still considered relevant today. Hence, to study the challenges and prospects of left political parties’ in Assam, an analytical approach is used to verify the facts. It is hoped that an in-depth study on electoral politics of left political parties of Assam will certainly tap the research gap on the issue and will provoke further empirical study on the subject.

Women's political participation in the socio-cultural environment of Pakistan: A critical review of mainstream political parties (2018-2022)

Although women make up half of Pakistan's population, their participation in politics has historically been limited. While women today are more politically active and articulate than in the past, their involvement is still hindered by various factors, including patriarchal structures, a genderbiased socio-cultural environment, and a conservative interpretation of Islam. This study utilizes qualitative methods to assess the participation of women as voters and candidates by examining the roles of far-right (Jamaate-Islami), central (Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf) and left (Pakistan People Party Parliamentarian) political parties in the 2008, 2013, and 2018 elections. Relevant secondary sources, including the selected parties' manifestos, have been analyzed through content analysis to establish the appropriate context. The research findings indicate that although regulatory efforts aim to increase women's representation, political parties frequently prioritize female candidates with preexisting political backgrounds. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that the parties' ideological positions significantly impact their dedication to female political participation and representation. Although political parties have made some progress in improving women's representation and participation in elections, it is clear that a significant and ongoing dedication is necessary to close the gender gap in political engagement.

Insecurity and political uncertainty: Factors that Influence the Fall of Foreign Direct Investment in Mexico

One of the fundamental aspects of any government is to have a national development plan that establishes the guidelines that will guide the destiny of the nation. In the case of Mexico, each six-year presidential term has a national development plan that may or may not have continuity, where one of its main objectives is economic growth. The attraction of foreign direct investment is one of the pillars of economic growth, however, it can be affected by various national and international factors. This research analyzes the behavior of foreign direct investment during four presidential terms in Mexico from 1999 to date. The first twelve years were governed by the national action party (PAN, right wing political party), from 2012 to 2018 by the institutional revolutionary party (PRI, center-right political party) and from 2019 to date by the MORENA political party (left wing political party). The methodology applied for this research was an autoregressive process of order one. We highlight that the arrival to the presidency by the PAN in the year 2000 brought large flows of foreign capital during it´s six-year term, however, during the period from 2006 to 2012 also governed by the PAN there is a decrease in the attraction of FDI of 27% in relation to the previous period. Likewise, a 16% drop in FDI is also observed during the period from 2012 to 2018 governed by the PRI and a drop of almost 5% from 2019 to date, a period governed by the political party MORENA. As a conclusion, we can argue that the drop in FDI in the period studied can be attributed to various factors such as organized crime as well as the distrust of investors derived from the arrival of a leftist political party to the government.

The Prominent Leftist Leaders of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: An Appraisal

The history of leftist politics in NWFP (present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) draws significantly less attention in scholarly and academic journals on national and international politics than other topics do. This was because of Pakistan's alliance with the US-led capitalist camp right after independence in 1947, which made it difficult for its leftist leaders to carry out their program. Throughout the Cold War era (1945-93) the leftist political parties in Pakistan in general and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in particular were incapable of consolidating their position in the post-colonial period and consequently remained marginalized in electoral politics. Despite severe state repression and cracks down, many of the notable leftist leaders of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa continued to carry out their work. However, the list of these leaders is very long and could not be covered by a single research paper. Therefore, this study aims at highlighting the family background, biographies, and political achievements of only selected Six leftist leaders of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil

Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil

‘Thin labourism’: Ideological and policy comparisons between the Australian, British, and New Zealand labour parties

Centre–left political parties are undergoing an identity crisis. This article is a comparative analysis of how the three sister labour parties in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are refurbishing their agendas. We integrate Barrientos and Powell’s framework, with Freeden’s concept of ideological morphology, to systematically map the three parties across three main domains: their discourse and values, their political economy, and their social policy agendas. We then apply four different analytical frames to better understand the ideological and policy trajectories of our cases. These frames comprise ‘values, not ideology’, ‘quietism’, ‘third way’, and ‘thin labourism’. We argue that the frame of ‘thin labourism’ best captures the recent developments of these modern labour parties. In sum, the parties are still rooted in a recognisable centre–left tradition, but they operating from a narrower base of core values.

NEW ECOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL PEOPLE’S UNION AS A LIFELINE FOR THE FRENCH LEFT

The article is devoted to the unification of the leading left parties of France: Socialist (SP), Communist (FCP), Europe Ecology – The Greens (EEG), France Unbowed (FU) – on the eve of the parliamentary elections on June 12 and 19, 2022, into a single alliance, called New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NESPU). It is analyzed to what extent the efforts made by the leaders of the leading left political forces corresponded to the aspirations of the left electorate. Particular attention is paid to the theoretical provisions of the program adopted by the NESPU, it was educed to what extent the strategy adopted by the Union corresponded to the individual programmes of the parties and what the coalition participants failed to agree on. The socio-cultural section of the NESPU electorate is considered separately. The results of the parliamentary elections for the NESPU are analyzed, the speeches of the deputies of the parties belonging to the Union in parliament on the most important issues of the financial policy of the government of E. Macron for 2023 are shown, and the fault lines between the participants of the NESPU are marked. Based on the results of the study, it was concluded that the newly created coalition of leftist political parties as a whole, despite the considerable differences in political courses, still manages to maintain unity, following the chosen strategy of free voting.

Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa

Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa

The birth of Soviet workers-dissidents

ABSTRACT This article deals with the birth of workers-dissidents in the USSR in the late 1970s, through materials of the Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFE-RL) Research Institute held at the Budapest Open Society Archive. Soviet dissidents are usually regarded as intellectuals. However, beginning from the late 1970s, a small phenomenon of labour dissent arose within the Soviet Union, which also tried to found independent trade unions. These workers-dissidents had similarities as well as differences from intellectual dissidents. While intellectuals focused more on individual, civil and political rights, labour dissidents focused on socioeconomic rights. Contrary to what one may believe, the birth of this phenomenon was reported in relative detail by the British and American press. Soviet labour dissent was an important discursive field in the late Cold War. Anti-Communist Western trade unions and political parties mentioned Soviet repression against workers-dissident to emphasise one basic contradiction of the Soviet system. However, many leftist political parties and trade unions also showed solidarity with Soviet labour dissidents, criticizing the same contradiction. With hindsight, these widespread reactions show that the USSR was becoming ideologically isolated, because even many Western Communists and Socialists were no longer prone to justify its antidemocratic and repressive methods.

Radical Housewives: Price Wars and Food Politics in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada

Radical Housewives: Price Wars and Food Politics in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada

Socio-Political Resistance in Sindh: From Ancient times to British India

If there is a discussion about the resistance in Sindh it had played an important role in history. It helped Sindh on the two fronts. One of the fronts of resistance had helped Sindh to preserve and maintain the age-old separate and distinct Identity from the foreign aggressions. Sindhi people have boldly stood against foreign invaders. It is another matter that like any other nation, Sindhi people sometimes succeeded in this regard to defend their motherland, and sometimes, they failed. But it is clear evidence that Sindh has staunchly opposed the foreign plunderers and attackers. The second important level of resistance is within the society. Sindhi people have initiated individual and collective levels movements against prevailing exploitation and injustice in the society. Sufis have played their part in this regard to curtail religious extremism and to strive hard to bring religious tolerance, harmony, and peace loving society. Besides the Sufis movement, Sindhi scholars, students, women, peasants have long struggled for the major contradictions and injustice in society. Like every other society, now there are various political parties and organizations working in Sindh. A variety of leftist political parties and innumerable rightist political parties are doing their politics. There exists civil society, women’s organizations, and student organizations working for the downtrodden class of society. Nationalist politics with respect to the vested interests of Sindh is commonplace. This was the brief nature of resistance which had remained insignificant in shaping and preserving the separate and distinct identity of Sindh.

Political Posters Reveal a Tension in WhatsApp Platform Design: An Analysis of Digital Images From India’s 2019 Elections

This article examines the effects of WhatsApp as a mode of dissemination of political posters. It found that platform affordances that control the crafting and dissemination of political messages open up the possibility of vague political messaging by conforming to the social media’s visual culture and limit the spread of these messages, restricting the ability to organically gather support for a political cause. Despite the growing appeal of social media in political campaigns, social media messages when used by individuals and small, independent social media groups, who are not a part of a larger, organized political party or movement, have little influence on electoral decisions of voters about a political cause that faces weak public support. This was discussed in the context of electoral results of the Leftist political party in India in 2019 national elections. The paper then contributes to our understanding of the extent of the influence of social media platforms on political media messages.

A Strike against the Left: General Strikes and Public Opinion of Incumbent Governments in Spain

Political links between labor unions and leftist political parties have weakened over the last four decades in Western Europe, reducing the former’s influence on the latter. Unions’ prolonged organizational decline suggests that their capacity to pressure left parties should become more limited. We examine whether unions can use general strikes to influence public opinion when left parties in government pursue austerity policies. Executing a distributive lag time series analysis of quarterly public opinion data from 1986 to 2015 in Spain, we find that Socialist governments incurred significant public opinion penalties in the wake of a general strike. Not only did PSOE prime ministers lose confidence from the public, but they also witnessed a significant reduction in voting intentions. In contrast, Spain’s conservative governments incurred no such public opinion penalties in response to general strikes. We conclude that general strikes carry significant political costs for left governments that stray from union ideals.

A RELAÇÃO ENTRE MOVIMENTO FEMINISTA E PARTIDOS POLÍTICOS NO BRASIL NO CONTEXTO DE ACIRRAMENTO DA CRISE CAPITALISTA, 2008-2017

Este estudo analisa como tem se expressado a relação entre movimentos feministas e partidos políticos de esquerda no Brasil, no período entre 2008 a 2017, contexto de acirramento da crise capitalista mundial. A partir de um estudo de caso sobre a forma como essa relação tem sido construída por três movimentos feministas de expressão nacional, quais sejam: a Marcha Mundial das Mulheres (MMM), a Articulação de Mulheres Brasileiras (AMB) e o Movimento de Mulheres Camponesas (MMM), apontamos tendências contemporâneas apresentadas pelos movimentos feministas sobre suas relações políticas com os partidos de esquerda. Nossa hipótese era de que, no contexto de acirramento da crise capitalista, a relação entre movimentos sociais e partidos políticos do campo da esquerda estaria se fortalecendo, no sentido de uma maior aproximação indicando organicidade. Assim, tendo em vista as particularidades do cenário nacional, propomos a tese de que, no Brasil, a relação atual entre movimentos feministas e partidos políticos de esquerda sinaliza uma relação de novo tipo, baseada na compreensão dos movimentos sociais de que são sujeitos políticos e cumprem a mesma função dos partidos no direcionamento da luta política da classe trabalhadora. A pesquisa de natureza qualitativa utilizou-se de: levantamento bibliográfico para a construção do referencial teórico e compreensão histórica do objeto de estudo; pesquisa documental realizada em sites da MMM, da AMB e do MMC e entrevistas em profundidade realizadas com quatorze militantes de referência para esses movimentos, para coleta de dados; e análise do discurso para compreensão dos dados. Os resultados apontam para a sustentação da tese. Os movimentos estudados no contexto da crise capitalista aproximaram-se mais de partidos políticos do campo da esquerda, estabelecendo uma relação de organicidade, principalmente com a Consulta Popular e o Partido dos Trabalhadores. Essa relação é fundamentada na compreensão de que a transformação social só poderá ser levada a cabo por meio de luta antissistêmica que articule as dimensões do gênero/sexo, da raça/etnia e da classe. O mote “sem feminismo não haverá socialismo” indica o entendimento desses movimentos de que uma sociedade mais igualitária deve se alicerçar na luta pela emancipação da classe trabalhadora, mas também atentar para as especificidades da emancipação da mulher.

“L’estaca:” Transnational Trajectories of a Catalan Antifascist Song

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the song “L’estaca,” which was composed in 1968 by Catalan songwriter Lluís Llach and became emblematic of the struggle against the Francoist dictatorship. I trace the ways in which the song has been reused and assigned new valence in a variety of cultural and political contexts, including the 1980s Solidarność movement in Poland and the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia. I interrogate how this anti-Francoist song has been recently recaptured by leftist social movements and political parties in Spain, as well as by the Catalan separatist movement.

Minor Apocalypses: Italian Autonomia, Utopia, and Women

The essay discusses the tactics of the Italian Autonomia movement during the 1960s and 1970s as a form of realized utopia. The Autonomists rejected the reformism of the Left political parties and unions in the name of the refusal of work—work as it had been structured by capital—in order to reappropriate time to experiment with new forms of everyday existence. Women could not do the same. Therefore, when studied together with Autonomist feminism of the time, male Autonomism loses some of its radical edge. The women’s demand for wages for housework makes clear that the idea of utopia that male autonomists pursued could not be experienced in the same way by women, who continue to bear the burden of reproductive labor in the home, and whose autonomy is limited by the demands of patriarchal society.

Code Work: Thinking with the System in México

ABSTRACTThis article explores how young people position themselves in relation to promises of technology and progress during a time of political transition in Mexico. My fieldwork took place between 2013 and 2017, just before a newly formed leftist political party gained power after a century of rule by Mexico's “revolutionary” party. For self‐identified “disenchanted” youth in Mexico, skeptical of the promises of social mobility by means of formal education, “hacking” emerged as a way to make sense of their futures in a precarious state and economy and as a way to let their “code work” intervene in narratives that had only delivered false hopes. Coworking spaces, hackathons, entrepreneurial initiatives, and neoliberal “reforms” were seldom differentiated by politicians. By immersing themselves in the code that underlies the technologies that promise developmentalist change, I show how fundamental coding principles become good to think with, alongside the institutions and systems responsible for reinstating unequal opportunities, iteration after iteration. Hacker‐entrepreneurs used their code work to develop heuristics for analyzing the organization of entities and relationship between them, whether they were elements in a coding environment or actors in a political‐economic environment. [technology, knowledge economy, youth, computing, precarity]

Violence of Values/Values of Violence. The Cultural Struggle of Alt-Right Politics

This paper tackles the construction of social and political values that contemporary Alt-Right politics foster. Its aim will be, first, to tackle the values that Alt-Right parties are spreading at a global scale from the last decade. Second, I will focus on how they address the most precarious social groups for increasing their supporters and how they have built a new model of the social order that gainsays human and civil rights. Finally, I will give an account of some reasons that explain the social failure of classical Leftist political parties, also attempting to transform the ways they accost the former ‘working class’. I engage a dialogue with Zeynep Gambetti and Vladimir Safatle, as both authors have centrally addressed the cultural struggle that populist right parties accomplish on a global scale.

Welfare Chauvinism

The authors in the article reveal the positioning of extreme right political parties in the Western world and Central and Eastern Europe by following such ideological basis as nationalism and welfare chauvinism, practically rejecting immigrants and their willingness to use the benefits and services of the mentioned welfare systems in the presented Western as well as Central and Eastern European countries. The authors maintain their position, applying the secondary data from European Social Survey, International Monetary Fund and OECD data as well as interpretations of the authors from different foreign countries. In the end of the article the authors pose the one of the most interesting scientific and practical questions – why the place of the electorate of the „socially excluded“ and having low income voters is moving from the left political parties to the side of the extreme right political parties? The further research is necessary in the following direction. This article is the first article of the theme on social chauvinism in Lithuania.