Radical Left Research Articles

La recepción de la Revolución Mexicana en América del Sur

Este texto analiza la reacción de los gobiernos y, en menor medida, de la opinión pública de los países sudamericanos más activos políticamente, frente a los movimientos revolucionarios de México durante la década de 1910, y acompaña su comportamiento ante el desarrollo de los procesos reformistas, marcadamente de izquierda, que inician en 1920 y se prolongan hasta los años de la Guerra Civil en España. El argumento central propone que los gobiernos sudamericanos, la mayor parte de ellos de orientación oligárquico-derechista y firmes aliados de Estados Unidos, mantuvieron misiones diplomáticas en México en razón de la conversión del país en un laboratorio de reformas radicales izquierdistas que podrían fácilmente extenderse al resto del continente. Era necesario contar con el mayor volumen de información posible para evitar el contagio. Se enfatiza también la oportunidad que la llamada ‘Revolución Mexicana’ representó para los fallidos esfuerzos de consolidación del bloque de Argentina, Brasil y Chile, el ABC, como la formación política hegemónica de América Latina, y el papel que el caldeado ambiente político de la ciudad de México tuvo en la re-escenificación de las viejas disputas territoriales sudamericanas.

Universal Basic Income in British Politics, 1918–2018: From a ‘Vagabond's Wage’ to a Global Debate

AbstractThe idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) has moved rapidly up the British political agenda in recent years, with support from the Green Party, the Royal Society of Arts, and left-wing writers such as Paul Mason. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has set up a working group to examine its implications, and four Scottish councils are hoping to launch pilot schemes. Contemporary British interest in UBI forms part of a lively global debate about automation, inequality and precarious labour, but it also draws on a long history of proposals for tax-benefit reform within UK social policy. This article identifies five waves of enthusiasm for basic income in Britain over the past century and highlights patterns of continuity and change. It shows that interest in the proposal has been greatest at times of pessimism about the future of the labour market, though concerns about the ethics and affordability of unconditional payments have always been difficult to shake. Advocates of UBI have also struggled to reconcile the technocratic approach of its Conservative and Liberal supporters with the transformative ambitions of the radical left. It remains to be seen whether the recent growth of left-wing support for UBI will improve its prospects of implementation.

Review

Over the last decade, at least 400 antisemitic attacks per year have occurred in France.1 Incidents include the brutal murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006 and, more recently in 2012, the attack on the Ozar HaTorah schoolhouse in Toulouse, when a lone gunman murdered one adult and three children under the age of ten, and critically wounded one teenage boy.2 In the summer of 2014 there were violent demonstrations against Israel, during which Jews were attacked, Jewish businesses were vandalized, and synagogues were targeted.3 Perhaps more insidious than these eruptions of violence is the increased prevalence of antisemitism in French culture and politics. The results of a November 2014 Fondapol survey on the growing presence of antisemitism in France are dire. One quarter of French people believe that Jews have too much power in the economy and finance, and twenty-two percent think Jews have too much power in the media. Thirty-five percent feel that Jews use their status as victims of the Holocaust as leverage for their own interests, sixteen percent believe there is a global Zionist conspiracy, and fourteen percent of France thinks that the anti-Zionist attacks against Jewish communities in 2014 were understandable.4 The 2014 Fondapol results also found that antisemitic attitudes tend to be more prevalent in “three specific subgroups of the French population: the extreme right, the radical left, and the Muslim community—itself an object of considerable animosity in France.”5 One illustration of this phenomenon is the increasing popularity of stand-up comedian Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, whose viciously antisemitic content has resulted in his arrest for violating hate-speech laws—thirty-eight times. He has also been fined for defaming public figures, although he has failed to pay those fines thus far.6 It is worth noting that Dieudonné also ran for Parliament—as a leftist pro-Palestinian candidate, and then as the head of an anti-Zionist party—multiple times.7 Dieudonné is far from alone in his obsession with the “Jewish Question,” as is evidenced by his growing popularity on social media. How are we to understand the source of this increasingly venomous presence of antisemitism in French radicalism?

A Force to be Reckoned with? The Radical Left in the 1970s.

The radical left has been a permanent, albeit marginal, feature of British politics since the Russian Revolution. It has rarely been a threat to the Labour Party or the mainstream of the trade union movement. The 1970s are a partial exception to this general trend. Communist and Trotskyist organisations played a prominent role in industrial disputes and the fight against the extreme right. However, their influence was short-lived and limited to a certain number of precise areas, and they were unable to establish themselves electorally.

Red Scare Racism and Cold War Black RadicalismRadical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism

Red Scare Racism and Cold War Black RadicalismRadical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism

23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement. By Keramet Reiter. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.

23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement. 584 By Keramet Reiter. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.In 1996, Los Angeles Times revealed that guards in California's 588 maximum-security prisons had been staging gladiatorial contests 589 between inmates. What's more, the contests often occurred in the 590 state's housing units, solitary confinement facilities 591 designed to keep the most dangerous inmates in continuous isola- 592 tion. guards would remotely unlock the cells of rival gang 593 members at the same time, intentionally releasing them into the 594 same space. Five men died when the fights got out of control and 595 guards shot them. 596Scandals like this one erupted with startling regularity in the state's secure housing units. But while inmates' lawsuits led to some modest reforms, the units themselves were not declared unconstitu- tional by the courts or deemed inhumane by the state legislature. Indeed, at Pelican Bay Prison, the state's first supermax facility, prison administrators spent the better part of the 1990s transform- ing what was once an extraordinary practice-round-the-clock iso- lation in an 80 square foot space-into a common one that some inmates would endure for decades. Pelican Bay's construction in 1988 represented an unprecedented expansion and modernization of the state's secure housing infrastructure, all in the name of secu- rity. Inmates' dangerousness, prison administrators argued, war- ranted both the extreme measure and the enormous discretion judges and legislators had given to corrections personnel about how to implement it.The power of that unchecked administrative discretion hovers over the entirety of Keramet Reiter's 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement, a brilliant and path-breaking biography of a prison that critics called a high-tech dungeon. Studying everything from the creation of the prison's blueprints in the 1980s to the response to the appalling scandals that erupted within it after it opened, Reiter finds that legislators elected to rep- resent the people and judges charged with protecting inmates' con- stitutional rights failed to meaningfully monitor the dramatic expansion of an extreme sanction.Drawing on a wide array of legislative, judicial, and journalistic sources, correspondence with prisoners confined in long-term soli- tary, and-most compellingly-oral histories she conducted with prisoners and prison administrators, Reiter offers an engrossing account of the history of Pelican Bay. Without compromising her scholarly orientation, she writes with the clarity, intensity, and acces- sibility of an investigative journalist.The modern history of solitary confinement in California, Reiter argues, begins with the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s and their infiltration into the prison. In corrections adminis- trators' minds, prisoners like George Jackson, a Black Panther whose Soledad Brother had made him a hero to the radical left, were responsible for the spiraling violence in California's prisons. Solitary confinement became a way to isolate ringleaders and prevent the conflicts they created.But reactionary backlash against the radical prison movement only did so much. It is not chiefly to blame for the massive expan- sion of solitary confinement, Reiter finds. Hannah Arendt's famous account of the banality of in Nazi Germany is a more apt point of reference (and one she explicitly invokes). The ongoing imposition of solitary confinement is not deliberate or malicious, she explains. [R]ather, it is the culmination of everyday bureau- cratic functioning and path dependency, in which one day of iso- lation becomes thirty days, and thirty days becomes thirty years (p. 5).Importantly, though, evidence in 23/7 and other studies of hyper-modern punishment suggest that banal evil does not stay banal for long (Dayan 2011; Lynch 2000; Smith 2008). …

French activists to the (radical) right and the (radical) left: are they different or similar?

ABSTRACTThis research aims at detecting commonalities and differences between right-wing and left-wing activists. Based on 44 interviews with members of the French National Front (FN) and 88 Attac activists, I find that Attac activists are individuals with high amounts of civic skills that have been politically socialised until the age of 25. Somewhat different, my interview research indicates that the socialisation mechanisms of FN members, as well as their social and educational backgrounds are diverse. Pertaining to the activists’ values, the two groups expose values at the opposite end of the political spectrum. Whereas left-wing activists respond to globalisation and neo-liberalism by highlighting national and international solidarity and participatory democracy, the radical right-wing members respond to the same phenomena by propagating nationalism, authoritarianism and protectionist policies. Finally, I find that left-wing activists are driven by instrumental and ideological considerations, whereas right-wing activists are motivated by ideology as well as identity processes.

The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s

The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s

‘We the People’ or ‘We the Peoples’? A Comparison of Support for the Populist Radical Right and Populist Radical Left in the Netherlands

AbstractResearch on the supply side of politics demonstrates that populism acts as a common denominator even though populist parties possess very different ideological positions. However, it is uncertain whether this translates to the demand side: Do voters support left and right‐wing populist parties for similar reasons? Using the Netherlands as our case study, we investigate the common demand side characteristics of supporters of populist radical right and populist radical left parties. The paper concludes that populist attitudes (i.e. a people‐centered notion of political representation) unify supporters of both populist radical left and populist radical right parties. Supporters of both parties also demonstrate lower levels of political trust (than voters for other parties): this is particularly the case for PVV supporters. Beyond these similarities we find that the PVV and the SP attract very different supporters. PVV supporters demonstrate low immigrant tolerance, while SP voters support more income equality.

Fighting the Korean War in pacifist Japan: Korean and Japanese leftist solidarity and American Cold War containment

ABSTRACTWhere does “pacifist” Japan fit within the history of the Korean War? Was Japan simply the beneficiary of the wartime boom – a case best exemplified by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru’s characterization of the Korean War as “a gift of the gods”? When North Korean troops crossed the thirty-eighth parallel and launched a full-scale attack against South Korea, the U.S. occupation in Japan quickly transformed the pacifist nation into the indispensable rear base of United Nations military intervention in the Korean War. The Japanese Communist Party and leftist groups organized by zainichi Koreans (Korean residents in Japan) launched an antiwar movement to stop Japan from producing and sending arms to UN forces in Korea. The U.S. occupation responded with determined efforts to contain every antiwar voice emerging from the streets of the pacifist country. By examining the political dynamics of zainichi Korean and Japanese leftist solidarity and U.S. countermeasures, this article shows how the Korean War was fought in pacifist Japan. It also illuminates how the practice of Cold War containment was mutually linked on the ground between occupied Japan and South Korea.

Business in the battle of ideas, 1945–1991: conclusions from the Finnish case

ABSTRACT This article examines the political activity – specifically lobbying and PR efforts – of major Finnish business associations during the Cold War era (c. 1945–1991). The main motivation for business political activity was the threat of socialism and state intervention in their various forms. Based on a qualitative reading of archived documents, this article illustrates a shift from the fear of an outright revolution in the 1940s, through leftist radicalism and economic regulation in the 1970s, to the rise of environmentalism in the 1980s. Influencing efforts were targeted at both politicians and the general public but, towards the end of period studied, shaping public opinion became increasingly important. This article contributes to our knowledge on business-politics links and business political activity as historical phenomena. It points out compelling similarities in the political activity of business in various Western countries and suggests that they should be examined more thoroughly in future research.

Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis

AbstractIn Weimar Germany, the Catholic Church vehemently warned ordinary parishioners about the dangers of extremist parties. We establish that constituencies' religious composition is a key empirical predictor of Nazi vote shares—dwarfing the explanatory power of any other demographic or socioeconomic variable. Even after carefully accounting for observational differences, Catholics were far less likely to vote for the NSDAP than their Protestant counterparts. The evidence suggests that this disparity was, in large part, due to the sway of the Catholic Church and its dignitaries. At the same time, we show that attempts to immunize Catholics against the radical left failed to achieve the desired result. To explain the puzzling asymmetry in the Church's influence at the ballot box, we develop a simple theoretical framework of elite influence in electoral politics.

Hua Loo-Keng’s Popularization of Mathematics and the Cultural Revolution

Before 1966, Chinese mathematician Hua Loo-Keng had singled out "Two Methods" as a way to truly applied and useful mathematics. The Overall Planning Method, based on the Critical Path Method widely used in USA, mostly appealed to middle and upper management. This limited its spread during the Cultural Revolution. The Optimum Selection Method, also of US origin, was more mass-oriented and ready for popularization. Nevertheless, Hua met resistance from leftist radicals, whose ideological objections sprang from an underlying power struggle. Hua built popularization teams, mostly from talented younger people whose careers were disrupted by the Cultural Revolution, and thus opened a path for many of them to important roles in China's scientific infrastructure after 1976. Hua Loo-Keng's efforts, while interrupted during the Cultural Revolution and the subsequent political campaigns, were also helped by the populist ethos of the movement, and by the lack of other non-political endeavors at that time. In this sense, the Cultural Revolution gave Hua Loo-Keng's popularization its importance and long-term impact.

The Paradox of Well-being: Do Unfavorable Socioeconomic and Sociocultural Contexts Deepen or Dampen Radical Left and Right Voting Among the Less Well-Off?

Radical left and right parties are increasingly successful—particularly among the less well-off. We assess the extent to which this negative effect of well-being on radical voting is moderated by contextual factors. Our study suggests that less well-off citizens vote for radical parties mainly under favorable aggregate-level circumstances. We distinguish two possible mechanisms underlying this effect—relative deprivation and risk aversion—and find support for relative deprivation only among radical right voters and for risk aversion for both types of radical voters, yet with predictable differences between the radical left and right supporter bases. Economic hardship leads to radical right voting when the socioeconomic circumstances are favorable and to radical left voting when net migration is modest. Our findings suggest a genuine paradox of radicalism: individual economic suffering might foster left and right radicalism, but mainly when that suffering takes place amid favorable conditions at the aggregate level.

The Case for Cleaning House: Sidney Hook and the Ethics of Academic Freedom during the McCarthy Era

Sidney Hook set the terms of debate on Communism, higher education, and academic freedom in the postwar United States. His view that Communists lacked the independence necessary for teaching and research—a view forged in the heated debates of New York City's radical left in the 1930s—provided the rationale for firing Communist professors across the country in the late 1940s and 1950s. Relying on close readings of underutilized archival sources, this article explores the development of Hook's thinking, charts his impact on key players in the period's higher education establishment (such as philosopher John Dewey and the American Association of University Professors), and outlines the way his writings helped lead to faculty dismissals at the University of Washington and New York University. The article also highlights the work of students and professors who challenged Hook's anti-Communist position, revealing a rich and often neglected mid-century discourse on academic freedom.

Beyond the 2008 Great Recession: Economic factors and electoral support for the radical left in Europe

One of the most striking political developments occurring during the Great Recession has been the growth of the radical left in some European countries. Though the literature is far from conclusive, it has generally been argued that the economy is not a main reason driving people’s support for non-mainstream parties (particularly the Greens and the radical right). In this article, we contend that this is not the case for radical left parties (RLPs), which despite pursuing other agendas do still compete very strongly on economic issues. Using individual-level data for 56 elections taking place between 1996 and 2016 in 15 European countries, we find a positive effect of unemployment on support for RLPs, and only very weak evidence that this effect depends on voters’ ideology or whether the mainstream (Social Democrats) left is in office. We conclude that unemployment enables the radical left to increase its support regardless of the political context but does not significantly change by itself the ideological makeup of its electorate.

Decadent Anarchists and Anarchist Decadents in 1880s Paris

ABSTRACTIn 1886, when the Decadent movement formed around Anatole Baju’s Le Décadent, some on the radical left in France saw its potential to become the locus of an avant-garde that fused politics and literature. Despite the efforts among some anarchists to associate themselves with the pejorative label of ‘decadent’ or to be a part of the journal, by the end of the year, all ties between those involved with anarchism and Le Décadent were definitively severed. If the avant-garde was represented ideologically in the mid-1880s by anarchism, Le Décadent did not show itself to be interested in finding common ground with them despite having opportunities to align itself with this new political movement.

On demons and dreamers: Violence, silence and the politics of impunity in the Brazilian Truth Commission

Measures towards post-conflict or post-authoritarian justice have historically relied on the merging of the concepts of silence, violence and impunity in order to create a single promise of justice. Scholars and practitioners in the field usually defend a trifold agenda of breaking the silence about violations of human rights, denouncing systematic violence in the past and fighting impunity as the only way of ensuring that violence never happens again. This trope was mobilized in Brazil in 2014, when the report of the country’s National Truth Commission (CNV) was released. However, in the Brazilian case, truth-seeking also produced its own form of ‘silence’. Whereas the CNV commendably denounced 377 perpetrators as the ‘demons’ responsible for implementing a state of terror during the last dictatorship (1964–1985), it also created a depoliticized and victimized idea of leftist militants as mere dreamers who fought for liberty and democracy in the past. By representing leftist militants as freedom fighters, the CNV silenced their fundamental ideas (and actions) regarding the concept of revolutionary violence and its radical programme of structural change. In this article, I provide an explanation that connects the CNV’s ‘silencing’ of this political project to the unreflective merging between the concepts of silence, violence and impunity in the literature. Via a narrative analysis of the CNV’s report and a critique of transitional justice debates, I argue that the silence on the political project of the radical left in Brazil echoes transitional justice’s silence about the complexities of violence in general.

The appeal of nostalgia: the influence of societal pessimism on support for populist radical right parties

In the literature, explanations of support for populist radical right (PRR) parties usually focus on voters’ socio-structural grievances, political discontent or policy positions. This article suggests an additional and possibly overarching explanation: societal pessimism. The central argument is that the nostalgic character of PRR ideology resonates with societal pessimism among its voters. Using European Social Survey data from 2012, the study compares levels of societal pessimism among PRR, radical left, mainstream left and mainstream right (MR) voters in eight European countries. The results show that societal pessimism is distributed in a tilted U-curve, with the highest levels indeed observed among PRR voters, followed by radical left voters. Societal pessimism increases the chance of a PRR vote (compared to a MR vote) controlling for a range of established factors. Further analyses show that societal pessimism is the only attitude on which MR and PRR voters take opposite, extreme positions. Finally, there is tentative evidence that societal pessimism is channelled through various more specific ideological positions taken by PRR voters, such as opposition to immigration.

Constructing the ‘Immigrant’: Germany’s Radical Left in the Refugee Crisis

The article scrutinises how Germany’s non-political party radical left has discussed immigration and ‘cultural’ or ‘national’ identity in the context of past and current immigration into Germany, with a focus on the refugee crisis of 2015. Three types of radical left discourse are identified. First, some in the radical left have come to regard immigrants, in particular refugees, as an ‘ersatz proletariat’ and therefore as potential revolutionary instruments for their own project. Second, some agree that revolutionary change is necessary but subordinate their principles to practical support for immigrants and refugees in the here and now. Third, given the improbability of communist revolution and the crisis of ‘Western modernity’, some on the radical left have called for the defence of ‘the West’ and to help immigrants assimilate into Western civilisation. The article makes a timely contribution to the knowledge about contemporary radical left politics in Germany and shows the fractured nature of Germany’s non-political party radical left in the context of the refugee crisis. It also investigates the impact of ‘crisis’ as an ‘open moment’ and ‘catalyst’ on the radical left’s discourse-as-practice.