Rise Of Parties Research Articles

The Myth of the Inevitable: How the Mistakes of the Powerful Facilitated the Rise of Nazi Germany

When examining the lead-up to World War II, Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland is often seen as the catalyst for the war. However, this oversimplification neglects the circumstances that led Hitler to such a position. This essay challenges the prevailing notion that Hitler and the Nazis attained power solely through unwavering determination and exceptional political acumen. Instead, it argues that mistakes and misinterpretations by German and international leaders played a crucial role in facilitating the Nazi Party's rise to power and the establishment of the Third Reich. The Weimar leadership's political and economic miscalculations, combined with their misunderstandings of Hitler and his party's intentions, created an environment ripe for Hitler's seizure of power in 1933. Additionally, the miscalculations and misreadings of influential nations like Great Britain, France, and the United States enabled the Nazi regime to solidify its power and pursue expansionist goals while missing crucial opportunities to halt its progress.

Pandemic populism: COVID-19 and the rise of the Nationalist AUR party in Romania

Many Central and Eastern European countries elected nationalist parties after the collapse of communism: a phenomenon often attributed to a combination of socioeconomic crisis and political instability. In 2010s, after the decay of other nationalist parties, Romania was seen as an exception to this rule, but the Covid-19 pandemic times have witnessed the rapid rise of a new nationalist party: the AUR (the Alliance for the Union of Romanians). Parliamentary elections in December 2020 saw this new political force gain 9.1% of the vote. Whereas previous nationalist parties in post-Communist Romania tended to appeal to more senior/elderly voters, there is evidence that the AUR vote is strong amongst men under the age of 35 who are educated to an elementary or high school level. This paper uses national electoral data, media analysis, and in-depth interviews with young, educated people to explore the spatial distribution of AUR support, the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has assisted the party's rise to prominence, and attitudes amongst university students to both the style and content of their politics. The paper concludes that the AUR offer a potent mix of old nationalism, religious faith, traditional family values and new ideological elements, such as environmentalism, anti-globalization, and anti-government critique to create a self-consciously 'alternative' political rhetoric. This is presented via new channels (especially social media) in a deliberately opportunistic, controversial, and spectacular manner. However, our investigation suggests that neither the content nor the style of this politics has widespread appeal among the more educated younger participants to the interview.

Obamageddon: Fear, the Far Right, and the Rise of “Doomsday” Prepping in Obama's America

This article examines the politics of American “doomsday” prepping during Barack Obama's presidency. It challenges claims that growing interest in prepping post-2008 arose exclusively from extreme apocalyptic, white supremacist, and anti-government reactions to Obama's electoral successes – claims that suggest prepping to be politically congruent with previous waves of extreme right-wing American “survivalism.” Drawing on ethnography, this paper argues that, while fears of Obama have been central to many preppers’ activities, much of their prepping under his presidency centred on fears that sit outside survivalist politics. Building on this, the article illuminates connections between prepping and America's twenty-first-century electoral mainstream. Engaging with discussions about the “remaking” of American conservatism during Obama's presidency, it particularly frames prepping's growth as being engaged with, and shaped by, currents of mainstream anti-Obama fear that similarly undergirded the Tea Party's rise within popular Republicanism at this time.

How the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and their voters veered to the radical right, 2013–2017

Until 2017, Germany was an exception to the success of radical right parties in postwar Europe. We provide new evidence for the transformation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to a radical right party drawing upon social media data. Further, we demonstrate that the AfD's electorate now matches the radical right template of other countries and that its trajectory mirrors the ideological shift of the party. Using data from the 2013 to 2017 series of German Longitudinal Elections Study (GLES) tracking polls, we employ multilevel modelling to test our argument on support for the AfD. We find the AfD's support now resembles the image of European radical right voters. Specifically, general right-wing views and negative attitudes towards immigration have become the main motivation to vote for the AfD. This, together with the increased salience of immigration and the AfD's new ideological profile, explains the party's rise.

Iraqi Women in Conditions of War and Occupation

IRAQI WOMEN IN CONDITIONS OF WAR AND OCCUPATIONSince the early twentieth century, the issue of women's emancipation has been integral to Iraq's struggle for liberation and development. With the foundation of the League for the Defense of Women's Rights in 1952, women moved to the forefront of Iraqi social activism. Reflecting the official misogyny manifest at the time, the League was initially established as an underground organization. It led the struggle for the establishment of women's legal rights and championed the replacement of tribal law with civil law, realized in 1959 with the passage of the Personal Status Law, in effect catapulting Iraq into the role of a vanguard state in the Arab world on women's rights. What this reflects is that the trajectory of Iraqi development in the twentieth century from a backwater province of the Ottoman Empire to a modem state is reflected in the progress of women from tribal chattel to citizens.'The works under review here document the reverse of this trajectory in terms of the process of transformation of Iraqi women from citizens of a viable state to tribal chattel in the dystopia created by regime change. Insofar as all these works were written in Arabic by Iraqi women and published within the past decade, they bear witness to the events unfolding around them, and reflect the discourse emergent among Iraq's female intelligentsia. Due to language barriers (that affect even some specialists) and limited distribution, this discourse has not received attention outside of Iraq. These works not only provide rare attention to women's active participation in Iraqi intellectual life and in critical debates on issues facing Iraqi society but they also draw on Iraqi sources that are not readily accessible or even known outside of Iraq, such as some government documents. Taken together, these books consider the changing status of women in Iraq over the last four decades and treat their position from different, though related, vantage points, shedding light on women's material conditions, participation in the workforce, and participation in the political system. Together, they document the degradation of Iraqi women's status with the decline of the Iraqi state.Lahay 'Abd al-Husayn's book, Athar al-Tanmiya wa-l-Harb 'ala al-Nisa ' fi al-'Iraq, 1968-88, is a revised version of her doctoral dissertation (PhD diss., University of Utah, 1988). The book traces the significant shifts that occurred in women's roles in Iraqi society between 1968 and 1988, or from the Ba'ath Party's rise to power to the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) roughly two decades later. This research contributes to our understanding of an overlooked, yet formative, period in Iraqi history, one that saw the beginning of the decline of women's rights. 'Abd al-Husayn argues that the negative effects of the Iran-Iraq war on women's access to education and work outside the home foreshadowed later shifts in Iraqi women's status. These shifts occurred as a result of significant turning points in modem Iraqi history, including the implementation of the sanctions regime in 1990 and the onset of the Anglo-American occupation in 2003.The significance of this book stems in large part from the author's use of Iraqi sources. For example, 'Abd al-Husayn employs statistical data reported in the main Iraqi government statistical yearbooks for 1967 through 1988, issued by the Iraqi Ministry of Planning. This source was difficult to obtain at the time of writing and was reportedly destroyed along with other source materials in the rampant pillaging and burning during the U.S. occupation. 'Abd al-Husayn's use of this and similar sources helps to reconstruct the historical record. The author complements these Iraqi government sources with annual reports of several international agencies, in particular the World Bank and the United Nations.Through exhaustive statistical analysis, the author concludes that while development expanded women's educational and employment opportunities, the Iran-Iraq War pushed women toward more segregated work opportunities in the lower strata. …

Hub of the Anti-Imperialist Movement

On 10 February 1927 the first International Congress against Imperialism and Colonialism, held in Brussels, Belgium, marked the official establishment of the League against Imperialism and for National Independence (LAI). The German communist Willi Münzenberg was the instigator of the congress, supported by the Comintern in Moscow. The congress was first mooted in 1925, however. From 1927 to 1933, Berlin was the operative centre for the LAI. Berlin was a haven for anticolonial activists in Europe during the 1920s, where the International Secretariat of the LAI coordinated anti-imperialist activism with the aim to fulfil the policy of the Comintern on the colonial question. The Nazi party's rise to power in Germany on 30 January 1933 witnessed the literal end of the German communist movement, the LAI and the anti-imperialist movement. This essay analyses the ‘lost’ history of the LAI, a sympathizing communist organization. The LAI was also a nostalgic reference for the decolonization movement in postwar societies that gained its momentum at the Afro-Asian conference in Bandung in 1955. The essay describes Berlin as the ‘place’ that provided anticolonial activists with a forum to manifest their political agenda. The aim is to narrate the LAI as the hub for the anti-imperialist movement in Europe. For the involved actors, the communist and anticolonial movement, the LAI was the central means to develop an international anti-imperialist movement.

Reinterpreting the Sino–Japanese War: 1939–1940, peasant mobilisation, and the road to the PRC

The War of Resistance to Japan (1937–1945) has long been recognised as the most important stage in the Chinese Communist Party's rise to power in 1949. Particularly in its North China base areas, the Chinese Communist Party is said to have pursued moderate, inclusive, and mobilisatory tactics during the war years to build a movement for national salvation from the bottom up, which eventually led to the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The evidence from the heart of the Taihang Base Area suggests the possibility of another contrasting history, masked by current interpretations, in which 1939–1940 was a crucial turning point in that process. Starting in September 1939, and for the following six months, there is evidence of more explicitly revolutionary endeavour. The Chinese Communist Party seized power locally from its allies and destroyed the opposition; it engaged in violent land reform and wealth redistribution; and it attempted to proletarianise itself. Understanding the causes of these phenomena and their consequences in one of the most important front-line base areas provides new perspectives on both the course of the war with Japan and the Chinese Communist Party's eventual success.

Making Mischief: Peter Kosminsky, Stephen Frears and British Television Docudrama

This article compares and contrasts the ways in which two British television drama directors, Stephen Frears and Peter Kosminsky, critique political power in films screened as part of the BFI's 2009 ‘Radical Television Drama’ season. Frears’ The Deal (2003) and Kosminsky's The Government Inspector (2005) are films concerned with New Labour and its politics, and both take a provocative line towards its culture and policies. The Deal examines the party's rise to power in the 1990s, focusing on the relationship and rivalry for the party leadership between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The Government Inspector dramatises New Labour's behaviour during the critical historical period following the September 11 attack on New York, focusing in particular on the controversial case of the arms inspector, the late Dr David Kelly. The article analyses the films as docudrama, arguing that the form has raised its cultural profile over the past 20 years. Contemporary reviewing of the two films is used to throw light on wider debates about docudrama, including the notion of ‘blurred boundaries’ between drama and documentary. The analysis of key scenes from the two films contends that there are more similarities than differences in the approaches taken by the two directors. Docudramas like these, the article concludes, have an active role to play in oppositional politics.

Third-party matters: politics, presidents, and third parties in American history

This fascinating book looks at the select group of third parties that have made a real difference in U.S. politics and governance. Third parties have been a fixture in the American political landscape since the beginning of the two-party system. More than 300 of these groups have surfaced, but only a handful have made a real difference. Third-Party Matters: Politics, Presidents, and Third Parties in American History tells the intriguing stories of those 11 parties, starting with the antislavery Liberty Party of 1840. The parties deemed worthy of inclusion were selected because they met at least one of three criteria. They were spoilers who changed the outcome of an election, they had an important influence on government policy or the future of politics, and/or they had popular appeal, attracting at least ten percent of the vote. This investigation reveals the background behind each party's rise, what it stood for, who its leaders were-including larger-than-life personalities like Teddy Roosevelt, George Wallace, and Ross Perot-and the ultimate outcome of the election(s) in which the party participated. * Brief biographies of a select group of parties and personalities, including the first-ever third party, the longest-running third party, third parties organized by women, and those started by racial and ethnic minorities * A chronology showing the 11 important third parties that have figured in presidential elections, beginning with the election of 1840 * A bibliography listing sources for further reading

The political economy of growth and green politics in Ireland

The current economic crisis arrived at the end of an extended period of accelerated growth in Ireland. The paper will examine the impact for the Irish Greens, including a discussion of the role of the 'Green Political Economy', in the aftermath of that party's rise to power as junior participants of the current coalition government in the republic.

‘Responsibility for Europe’: the EU policy of the German Social Democrats since unification

The following article analyses the European Union (EU) policy of the German Social Democrats (SPD) since German unity. Starting from the cross-party European consensus in the early 1990s SPD policy has altered significantly in response to major changes in the ‘policy context’ such as the party's rise from opposition to government, German unification and increasing European integration. Policy change in the SPD has been defined by two dynamics: greater ‘pragmatism’ among a new generation of party leaders that has allowed a ‘freer’ interpretation of German interests; and a gradual prioritisation of EU policy in the party elite that has seen it integrated into a multi-level programme for political governance. The article examines how these changes manifested themselves in SPD policy, focusing on European Economic and Monetary Union and the debate on ‘the future of Europe’.

The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party: Documents and Analysis (review)

Reviews 229 Tony Saich, editor. The Rise to Power ofthe Chinese CommunistParty: Documents and Analysis. With a contribution by Benjamin Yang. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996. lxix, 1,431 pp. Hardcover $195.00, isbn 156324 -154-4. Paperback $45.00, isbn 1-56324-155-2. This imposing work, the culmination ofa ten-year project, is a major contribution toward our understanding ofthe Chinese Revolution. Saich couches his presentation of 212 major Communist Party documents in compeUing analyses (totaling 120 pages), which, together with his thirty-page general introduction, provide a "cutting edge" interpretation and, I fhink, the best short history ofthe rise ofthe Chinese Communist Party. The Party that emerges here is one that was continuously beset by factional struggles and by tensions between the Party Center and non-centers and between loyalty to organization and leader; one that had great difficulty in mobüizing support among the masses and was successful only where cadres based their approaches and policies on local realities and contexts; and one, belying the standard mythic Maoist history offhe Party, that was polycentric in leadership and program into the 1940s. Saich divides fhe documents and analysis into eight periods, some ofwhich overlap on the basis ofintra-Party development and extra-Party relationships; for example, Commentary F deals with united front difficulties from 1939 to 1941 while Commentary G focuses on "establishing the orfhodoxy" from October 1939 to April 1945. The periodization itselfdraws attention to the significance ofboth internal Party developments and relations with the outside world in the contours ofthe Party's rise. The documents are the heart of this work. They come from a wide variety of sources: archives (among them, the central Party archives in Beijing and the van Ravesteyn archives in Amsterdam); from previously published English-language translations (e.g., documents in works like C. Martin Wübur and Julie How, Missionaries ofRevolution [Harvard University Press, 1989] and Boyd Compton, Mao's China: Party Reform Documents, 1942-1944 [University ofWashington Press, 1952]); from newspapers and periodicals ofthe period; and from various studies and coUections published in the 1980s—such as biographies of Zhang Guotao and Zhang Wentian and accounts ofnon-central base areas and movements. The range ofdocument types gives this work its richness; my examples serve as only a hint ofthe scholarly wealth in this volume. The documents deal with the panoply ofParty concerns—political, müitary, social, cultural, and economic; the© 1997 by University bane offactionalism that dogged the Partyateverystep; and die host ofnon-Chinese Communist Party institutions and/or their representatives with which the Party had to deal: warlords, the Guomindang, the Comintern, the Japanese, and the Americans. Among the most formal legal documents are fhe various constituofHawai 'i Press 230 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. ?, Spring 1997 tions and laws issued by fhe Party. These include the 1922 Constitution (and its three révisions of 1923, 1925, and 1927), the 1928 Constitution, the 1931 Constitution and Land Law ofthe Chinese Soviet Republic, the 1934 Organic Law ofthe Chinese Soviet Republic, and the 1945 Constitution. Saich uses these documents to point to changes over time in Party directions and to emphasize the importance oforganization to the movement. But they are only skeletons to which the editor through his choice of the other documents endows historical flesh and blood; these documents bring to life fhe Party's rise and such dramatic struggles as the late 1920s attack on the role and person ofChen Duxiu, the battle between Zhang Guotao and the Party Center, and the competition in the 1930s and 1940s between Mao on the one hand and Wang Ming and Bo Gu on the ofher. Less formaUy imposing than Party constitutions and edicts are Party resolutions (such as that on fhe Guangdong peasant movement in 1926); several ofMao Zedong's classic writings (his 1927 report on fhe Hunan peasant movement, the 1942 speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art, and his essays on coalition government [1945] and die people's democratic dictatorship [1949]); and speeches at Party conferences. The last reveal the struggles ofparticular historical contexts, giving striking evidence that Party debates, far from being dominated by ideology or dogma, were generaUy deeply...

Nationalsozialistische Versammlungspropaganda und Wahlerfolg der NSDAP: eine kausale Beziehung?

The question of whether NSDAP propaganda could have furthered the party's rise in the Weimar elec tions has been controversially discussed for decades. How ever, the scholarly debate in the past suffered from an al most complete lack of solid empirical evidence. According to recent empirical analyses for a sample of 226 com munities, the NSDAP's political meetings have a signifi cant and positive effect on the National Socialists' electoral success. Yet, to interpret this empirical relationship in a causal way will be risky as is often the case within the analysis of communication effects. In this article I am going to pursue two strategies which should shed some light on the validity of a causal interpretation. Firstly, it is tested whether the impact of the NSDAP's public meetings differs between subregions and/or fades away in some of the subregions. Secondly, it is examined whether including an indicator of informal mobilization processes in the ana lysis weakens the impact of NSDAP propaganda. Both steps of the empirical analysis reveal that the effect of the NSDAP's propaganda on its election results is almost un changed. Therefore, the results presented in the article strenghten a causal interpretation of the relationship be tween NSDAP propaganda and the party's rise. Although a definite proof is not possible, the election propaganda of the National Socialists almost certainly made an important contribution to the rise of the NSDAP in the Weimar elec tions.

Jews and the German State: The Political History of a Minority, 1848-1933

Unlike many historians who see the period between 1848 and 1933 primarily as one of growing anti-Semitism which culminated in the Nazi Party's rise to power and the enactment of its programme of genocide, Peter Pulzer emphasizes the evolution of the ethnic identity, social roles and political activities of German Jews. He documents the emergence of the Jews of Germany from obscurity and marginality into the mainstream of public life over the century prior to the Nazi takeover and demonstrates the importance of Jews in the public life of Germany. In this book, the author argues that Germany history cannot be understood without grasping the role played by the Jewish population of Germany and proposes that the German-Jewish relationship helps to illuminate the complex roles played by minorities in modern societies. It should be of interest to students and scholars of Jewish history in general and German Jewish history in particular.

Radicalism in the States: The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the American Political Economy

Concentrated in states outside the Northeast and the South, third-party radical politics has been more widespread than many realize. In the 1920s and 1930s, American political organizations strong enough to mount state-wide campaigns, and often capable of electing governors and members of Congress, emerged not only in Minnesota but in Wisconsin and Washington, in Oklahoma and Idaho, and in several other states. Richard M. Valelly treats in detail the political economy of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party (1918-1944), the most successful radical, party in American history. With the aid of numerous interviews of surviving organizers and participants in the party's existence, Valelly recreates the party's rise to power and subsequent decline, seeking answers to some broad, developmental questions. Why did this type of politics arise, and why did it collapse when it did? What does the party's history tell us about national political change? The answers lie, Valelly argues, in America's transition from the political economy of the 1920s to the New Deal. Combining case study and comparative state politics, he reexamines America's political economy prior to the New Deal and the scope and ironies of the New Deal's reorganization of American politics. The results compellingly support his argument that the federal government's increasing intervention in the economy profoundly transformed state politics. The interplay between national economy policy-making and federalism eventually reshaped the dynamics of interest-group politics and closed off the future of state-level radicalism. The strength of this argument is highlighted by Valelly's cross-national comparison with Canadian politics. In vivid contrast to the fate of American movements, province level radicalism thrived in the Canadian political environment. In the course of analyzing one of the supressed alternatives of American politics, Valelly illuminates the influence of the national political economy on American political development. Radicalism in the States will interest students of economic protest, of national policy-making, of interest-group politics and party politics.

The Cape of Storms: A Personal History of the Crisis in South Africa

A white South African born into racial discrimination, Anthony Hazlitt Heard became increasingly aware of the injustice, suffering and contradiction in his native land. Cape of Storms is his highly personal account of the segregationist National Party's rise to power in South Africa and of the human and political consequences of that nation's recent history. As the editor of the Cape Times newspaper for 16 years, he faced prosecution, threats, reader hostility, government pressure and finally arrest for publishing a forbidden interview with Oliver Tambo, banned leader of the outlawed African National Congress. Major political upheavals and everyday life in South Africa are described in this memoir. The story ranges from the author's schoolboy life to the tumult of Sharpeville, Soweto, and the nationwide unrest of 1984-1986. As a working journalist, the author was involved with many of the major events and personalities during these troubled times. With this account, Heard sheds an insider's light on what life is really like in South Africa, why some of its people hold such extreme positions on the question of race, and what may lie ahead in the nation's volatile politics.

“La teoría i la realidad": The Democratic Society of Artisans of Bogotá, 1847-1854

I N late 1851, the artisan Cruz Ballesteros bitterly criticized members of the Colombian Liberal party in a scathing leaflet entitled La teoria i la realidad. Ballesteros complained that the Democratic Society of Artisans had been manipulated by Liberals to secure that party's rise to power. The society had temporarily set aside its objective of working for the common interests of Bogota's skilled laborers in order to pursue Liberal political victories, for which Liberals had pledged to reward the society by advancing its causes. Ballesteros, a carpenter, alleged that rather than fostering artisan industry and democratic government, Liberals had exploited the artisans' organizational strength, ignored their pleas for tariff protection, and denied them legitimate political participation.' In his outburst, Ballesteros echoed the sentiments of Ambrosio Lopez, who earlier in the year had charged that artisans had lost control of the society to the red serpents of the Liberal party, leaving craftsmen no choice but to leave the organization to struggle for their own interests.2 These sentiments are at odds with some later scholarly interpretations on the Democratic Society and seem, on the surface, to support conclusions reached by Conservatives in the 185os. Writers such as Venancio Ortiz had then argued that red liberals had misled loyal artisans with

Current Agrarian Reform Policies in Communist China

Whoever wins the support of the peasants will win China; whoever solves the land question will win the peasants. 3 Land policy constitutes the greatest single factor responsible for the Chinese Communist Party's rise to power. When Mao Tse-tung laid down the premise in 1927 that the agrarian revolution, centered on land redistribution and armed insurrection, was to be the crux of the party policy, he also laid down the foundation of his party's eventual victory. On the other hand, not to exaggerate the picture, it should be pointed out that Mao Tse-tung, following the Marx-