Radical Political Parties Research Articles

Greece Political Crisis: New Parties and Old Ideas

The article deals with the programs of Greek political parties and key results of snap elections in May and June 2012. The main questions are: will the austerity policy, implemented since 2010, continue, what is in store for Greece, if further reforms become politically unacceptable, and what are the chances that the Greek political crisis spreads to other South European states. The author concludes, that neither Greek nor EU decision-makers can propose effective program to establish economic growth. In these circumstances we see the rise if radical and populist political parties. If other European countries face the same economic problems, their political landscapes can undergo significant changes.

Radical or Not So Radical? Tactical Variation in Core Policy Formation by the Front National

Starting from a number of general tenets about radical political parties, this article examines the Front National (FN) in relation to its core policy issue of immigration. To what extent has FN immigration policy been defined from the outset by its radicalism? Has that radicalism been constant or variable over time? And how far can a reciprocal influence be detected between the FN and the center Right in immigration policy formulation? Focusing on election campaigns, manifestos, and key moments in the FN's evolution, the article assesses how the party has tailored its radicalism to contextual factors and tactical considerations. It reveals an FN less bound to a fixed policy and more ready to seek accommodation (with circumstance, public opinion, or the center Right) than is generally acknowledged. Conversely, it also assesses how the FN's mobilization of strong support on the immigration issue has had radicalizing effects on the center Right. The article concludes by considering whether the change of leadership in January 2011 might confine the FN to the radical Right or see it adopt a more center-oriented course.

Que ne suis-je Catulle (en ces presque 80 poèmes) par Jude Stéfan

expression can sometimes denote a softer, gentler teasing. In Locas’s novel, it is Geneviève’s snobbery that is critiqued: “Le Québécois n’est pas un Franco. Alors qu’il se pense roi du continent, une partie de son royaume s’est décrochée au fil des décennies et fait aujourd’hui fi de ses airs de supériorité” (55). The identity of the French Canadian in the Francophone world, among the Canadian Anglophones, and the perception of Francophones of urban Quebec by other Canadian French speakers, bring the question of the survival of the French language into a contemporary framework. The key to survival is to be open to outsiders rather than to retreat in isolation. Thus, the journalists of the Francophone paper publish articles that maintain optimism without rocking the boat. Bureaucracy and ineffectual committees that accomplish nothing are critiqued for their non-productivity, but also provide jobs and give the appearance of Francophone activism. The defeat of the separatist Parti Lys is not a disappointment to the characters in the Franco-M region, since a less radical political party could create better relations between Francophone and Anglophone Canadians. In this environment of external passivity, Geneviève learns that, in its own way, French is thriving. The phonetic and semantic variations of the French language that appear in La maudite Québécoise range from the rolling accent of the Franco-M to the nasal accent of the Québécois, to the mitchif (a mixture of French and Scottish words), and the Breton vocabulary used by one of Geneviève’s colleagues. This versatility and adaptability confirm the survival of the French language on the North American continent. Although Locas satirizes all of the characters, she still gives preference to the FrancoM , writing that the entry to la francophonie in America may be through Quebec, but that the Franco-M are better interpreters of both language and lifestyle. The novel is intended to be Geneviève’s thoughts on what she hears and reads during her sojourn. She explains that writing is her means of survival during her stay. The style varies from narration to snippets of dialogue, interspersed with quotations from poems and songs, but it is rather flat and dull, much like Geneviève. The structure of the entries is also problematic. The first half of the novel, L’Arrivée, places the entries in chronological order. In the second half, Le Départ, the reverse chronology does not indicate Geneviève’s anticipated departure , but simply returns to the onset of her departure to the region. She explains that this structure intends to show “qu’il ne se passe jamais rien” (167). Her friend asks Geneviève why she does that, and points out that this may frustrate the reader to the point of throwing the book into the garbage. But the protagonist turns a deaf ear, and, unfortunately, so does Locas. Although the topics she broaches are worthy of study, the author fails to take a clear stand on them, or to give them the importance they deserve. Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Nathalie G. Cornelius STÉFAN, JUDE. Que ne suis-je Catulle (en ces presque 80 poèmes). Paris: Gallimard, 2010. ISBN 978-2-07-012749-8. Pp. 102. 16,50 a. This rich, strange, and singularly compelling book of farewells from one of France’s major poets continues his anti-lyrical stance with hefty doses of cynicism and baroque, erudite inventiveness. Dense, dark, allusive, sardonic, Stéfan’s acid gaze seeks to wear down age-old poetic structures so that distinctly different 224 FRENCH REVIEW 85.1 ideas and forms might rise to the surface, even taking pleasure in announcing his disappearance from the literary scene. The title ironically compares the zeal of Catullus and Stéfan for confronting a gamut of emotions in raucously crude, precise , knowing terms, while also making light of the latter’s inability, according to a peremptory “Sorbonagre” (11), to equal the former’s renown. Stéfan wastes no time, however, presenting his own antagonistic viewpoints, with his usual flair for chiseled forms, daring juxtapositions, and forthrightness both caustic and touching...

Beyond the Pale? Avigdor Lieberman and Demographic Racism in Israel

The long-term shift of the Israeli public to the right has resulted in the ascendance of a host of radical right wing ideologies and political parties. Yisrael Beitenu party, led by Avigdor Lieberman, an émigré from the former USSR, has attracted special attention for its xenophobic and fierce anti-Palestinian racist platform on the one hand, and for its audience which is largely composed of new Russian immigrants on the other. Various explanations have been given for the ascendance of this party, such as the imperialist culture of its Russian audience, its populist messages which lure citizens – mostly new migrants – disillusioned with the liberal democratic system and the racism prevalent in Russian culture towards the Muslim peoples of central Asia. However, a careful review of the political attitudes of Yisrael Beitenu supporters reveals that their beliefs are not significantly different from those held by mainstream Israelis. Thus, instead of looking for explanations for the rise of Yisrael Beitenu exogenous to Israeli culture and society, this article traces these reasons to the colonial nature of Israeli society, where a schizophrenic culture has emerged in which existing reality is denied, and even condemned. The new immigrants, beside the syndrome of over-loyalty which they have, seem to misinterpret the colonial culture into which they arrived. They seem to adhere to the facts of life as they are without much obfuscation or vindication.

The Moderation Theory Revisited

An influential political science literature argues that integration of radical political parties within the political system leads to their moderation. These parties trade off their ideological platforms for electoral viability and political legality. Radicals become moderates through strategic interests. In this article, I revisit this thesis and apply it to the Islamic political actors in Iran and Turkey by employing the comparative method of agreement. Three conclusions are reached. First, moderation helps explain the evolution of Islamists into Muslim reformers. Second, moderation is a double-edged sword, especially in regimes with strong un-democratic characteristics. Moderation of radicals may result in their domestication — a situation that does not contribute to democratic transition or consolidation. Finally, change in the ideologies of political elites is central in our understanding behavioural change. The data sources include ethnography, primary language sources and historical narratives.

A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing or a Gift from Heaven? Left–Left Coalitions in Comparative Perspective

Communist, post-Communist and radical socialist political parties have recently been brought into the coalition equation in a number of democratic states. This article seeks to develop and apply an analytical framework suitable for understanding under what conditions this occurs. It concentrates primarily on coalition formation at the sub-state level between social democratic parties and competitors to their ideological left. The framework is applied in the German and Spanish cases. The article concludes that there do indeed appear to be optimal sets of conditions facilitating the creation of left–left coalitions.

Voting Radical Right in Western Europe and Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market

Voting Radical Right in Western Europe. By Terri E. Givens. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 188p. $65.00. Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market. By Pippa Norris. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 366p. $70.00 cloth, $24.99 paper. Among the most distressing features of contemporary politics within many older and nascent democracies is the surge of popular and/or electoral support for radical right political parties (RRPs). Oftentimes referred to as the “new right,” “extreme right,” “neopopulist right,” or other similar labels, these illiberal agents have proliferated especially across Western Europe since the 1980s, precipitating considerable consternation among mainstream political parties and elites wherever they have taken root. Although none are on the threshold of achieving a major electoral breakthrough, RRPs currently exercise influence over public political discourse and/or the policy agenda in most of the major immigrant-receiving countries within the region.

One Party, Two Traditions: Radicalism and Pragmatism in the Australian Greens

The 2004 Australian federal election established the Australian Greens (Greens) as the third largest political force in the country behind the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Liberal Party in electoral terms. Despite the Greens’ electoral achievements, the party has been largely dismissed as a radical single-issue political party. This paper will argue that while radicalism is an institutionally entrenched feature of the Greens in both organisational and programmatic terms, there are also strongly pragmatic aspects to the party's modus operandi. It suggests that the Greens are astute political operators who use radicalism in a highly pragmatic way to achieve their political objectives.

Vybrané aspekty vývoje německého hospodářství za Velké hospodářské krize

Velká hospodářská krize prohloubila problémy výmarské republiky a přispěla k nastolení nacistické diktatury. V hospodářské oblasti však již ve druhé polovině 20. století existovaly symptomy, které dokládaly slabost německé ekonomiky. Největším problémem se stalo zadlužení státu a vysoké veřejné výdaje, které souvisely s velkým objemem zahraničních půjček. Politické strany se nedokázaly shodnout na protikrizových reformách, proto říšský prezident Paul von Hindenburg v roce 1930 jmenoval kancléřem Heinricha Brüninga. Jeho vláda se soustředila na vyrovnání rozpočtu a zrušení reparací. Proto kabinet přijal řadu drastických úsporných opatření, která měla za cíl snížení státních výdajů a udrženi stability měny. Zvolená deflační politika nevěnovala pozornost rychle rostoucí nezaměstnanosti a sociální nestabilitě, která se odrazila v nárůstu preferencí radikálních stran - NSDAP a KPD. Hospodářský propad dosáhl svého vrcholu po vypuknutí tzv. bankovní krize, způsobené krachem velkých berlínských bankovních domů. Vláda i nadále pokračovala v deflační politice, neboť vycházela ze zkušenosti s hyperinflací z let 1923-1924 a většina politiků se obávala, že by nové úvěry a státní zásahy do ekonomiky vedly ke znehodnocení měny a politickým nepokojům.Ani následující kabinety Franze von Papena a Kurta von Schleichera nedokázaly zastavit dopad hospodářské krize. Až nová vláda Adolfa Hitlera zahájila éru státních investic do zbrojení a veřejných staveb, a tak přispěla k ukončení hospodářské krize.

South America's Tri-Borders Region

Reviewed by: Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective (2nd Edition) Randall Wood (bio) Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective (2nd Edition), edited by Wayne A. Cornelius, Takeyuki Tsuda, Philip L. Martin, and James F. Hollifield (Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 2004) 560 pages. $27.95 (paper), $65.00 (cloth). Among the more salient paradoxes that characterize the early 21st century is the tension between an overwhelming tendency toward strengthened economic ties, economic integration, and liberalizing cross-border flows of capital and labor—all of which are known to increase aggregate social welfare—and the intensifying socio-political pressure to restrict the ingress of foreign workers who are perceived publicly as threats to the livelihood of homeland workers, if not as nuisances to public order, vectors for crime, carriers of disease, and worse. Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective broadens our understanding of this paradox by analyzing the policies—both failed and inspired—of a cross section of Western European, North American, and Pacific nations that have attempted to address the challenge of immigration. Building upon its critically acclaimed first edition (1994), the volume features new essays that emerged from a research conference held at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies in San Diego in May 2002. These contributions provide a critical appraisal of the evolving policy responses of governments in the face of dramatic upsurges in immigration. In doing so, the authors retain and refine the two hypotheses presented in the first edition: that real outcomes frequently differ from the intended outcomes of policy and that immigration policies and social attitudes towards immigration have converged worldwide toward a common set of goals and attitudes over the past decade. The dynamic debate over immigration is shaped by the demands of local industries and manufacturing lobbies desperate for lower-cost labor, by a shrinking middle class that feels threatened by a supposedly burgeoning immigrant labor pool and by the political strength of new right-wing radical political parties and their frequently demagogic leaders, who have [End Page 209] been able to gain support and exert pressure by capitalizing on local discontent with an easy scapegoat: foreign workers. Well-meaning governments often damage their own best interests by implementing vague, contradictory or toothless policies, causing crises to escalate. By weaving together a useful introduction and eleven well-crafted country studies, the editors make sense of the rhetoric and political grandstanding. The authors have sharp eyes for political paradoxes, from the Spanish and Italian aversions to immigration in spite of their shrinking native populations and rising demand for low-cost immigrant labor, to the Japanese effort to maintain "racial homogeneity" at all costs, even economic. The analyses cut through the doublespeak of politicians—Italy's come to mind—who call for reforms to stem the tide of illegal immigrants while quietly catering to the needs of labor-intensive industries whose demand for low-cost labor has been rising for decades. On the whole, the book reads easily and manages to maintain an informative tone without being either preachy or arcane. The editors have obviously striven to ensure the text is accessible even to those who are not immigration scholars—no mean feat for a subject all too frequently mired in the complexities of statistics or economic policy. This is certainly a major selling point. The chapters are further bolstered by short scholarly commentaries—some complementary and some that illuminate research gaps—all of which shed additional light on the immigration controversy and expand on themes presented elsewhere in the book. The articles and commentaries identify the major questions of the immigration debate in the 21st century: how do nations balance their industries' need for cheap labor against the need to provide jobs for their own people; what rights should illegal immigrants possess; should they have the right to become full-fledged citizens after a certain time period; is it better to provide education for one's own citizens or to attract well-educated immigrants from other countries; how should nations handle asylum-seekers who threaten to overwhelm their legal systems; and how can states best manage population size when their native populations are dwindling? Since trade in many goods and services is essentially trade in the skills that...

The Labour Party and British Republicanism

The famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, once solved a case by referring to “the dog that did not bark.” In the past 250 years of British history, republicanism is another dog that did not bark. This is particularly true of supposedly our most radical major political party, the Labour Party. Over the monarchy, as over constitutional matters generally, Labour’s instincts have been conservative. Even after 1997, when the party, led by Lord Irvine, has indeed embarked upon major constitutional ref...

Friedrich Engels: businessman and revolutionary.

Friedrich Engels was born on November 28, 1820, in Barmen, Germany, into a wealthy family with deep roots in the yarn and cloth industry. His father owned a textile factory in Barmen and was a partner in a cottonspinning factory in Manchester, England. At the age of 17, under pressure from his father, Friedrich began to acquire business experience. But as a spirited and precocious young man, he also published poetry, learned languages fluently, engaged in contemporary philosophical debates, and displayed a marked talent for journalism. He was soon leading a double life as a businessman by day, and increasingly, a radical at night.1 Affiliating with left-wing intellectuals, he began a career as a political journalist under the pseudonym Friedrich Oswald. Among his more impressive early writings were his Letters From Wuppertal (1839), an eyewitness account of the evils of early industrialization and an attack on provincial bourgeois hypocrisy in the Rhineland district where he had grown up. In October 1842, Engels moved to Manchester to work in the family business and to continue his career as a radical journalist. He contributed articles to various European publications, including Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844) to an annual publication coedited in Paris by Karl Marx. Marx was deeply impressed by Engels’ work, terming it a “brilliant sketch on the criticism of the economic categories”; the 2 men began a long-term friendship and intellectual partnership that has been called “the most famous intellectual collaboration of all time.”2(p1) In 1845, Engels published, in German, The Condition of the Working Class in England. Based on his own observations and a mass of contemporary reports, the book described in trenchant prose the multitude of horrors daily suffered by English workers—the unsanitary streets of densely crowded urban slums, the decaying and degrading living quarters, the disrupted and disintegrating families, and, in the passage reproduced here, the unsavory, unsafe, and physically debilitating factories themselves. Engels’ book had an enormous impact and has been called “the best invective ever written . . . against industrial society and its conditions.”3(p66) Engels now joined Marx on the Continent, initially in Brussels, and worked closely with him over the next several years building the intellectual and political foundations of an international revolutionary movement. They coauthored The Holy Family (1845), The German Ideology (1846), and, most famously, The Communist Manifesto (1848). They joined forces in transforming various workers’ groups, secret socialist societies, and incipient radical political parties into, first, the League of the Just, and then into the International Communist League. When hopes for revolution faded on the Continent in the late 1840s, Engels and Marx moved to England. Engels returned to the family business in Manchester while Marx lived and wrote in London. Engels supported Marx with money he earned in the textile industry; he also continued his own radical activities. He became Marx’s most effective popularizer and propagandist. Indeed, when Marx published volume 1 of Das Kapital (1859), few could understand it; it was Engels’ reviews of the volume in a variety of journals that presented the “materialist conception of history” and the “dialectical method” of economic and social analysis with the greatest clarity and persuasiveness. Engels consolidated Marx’s influence among competing revolutionary programs in a variety of works, most notably in Anti-Duhring: Herr Eugen Duhring’s Revolution in Science (1878) and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880), which vigorously defended Marx’s commanding position among radical political theorists. After Marx’s death in 1883, Engels served as the premier international authority on Marx and Marxism. In addition to his own intellectual and political work and other promotional activities on behalf of Marxism, he completed volumes 2 and 3 of Das Kapital (1885 and 1894), working from Marx’s notes and incomplete manuscripts. Late in life, and despite the advance of European parliamentary democracy and, with it, of social reform, Engels still defended the need for continuing the class struggle and revolutionary political tactics. He died in London of cancer in 1895.

The Great Fear: The Catholic Church and the Anticipated Radicalization of Expellees and Refugees in Post-War Germany

The influx and plight of over twelve million refugees and expellees after World War II caused grave concerns among the West German Catholic clergy. Clergymen feared that the desperate newcomers would become radicalized. A commonly accepted notion of radicalism, however, failed to emerge. Some considered communism the greatest danger, others national bolshevism. Nihilism, calls for a redistribution of wealth and many other expellee demands were viewed as radical. Yet, the much-anticipated radicalization failed to materialize. In the final analysis, there was no refugee revolution or widespread support for radical political parties. To be sure, the expellees let it be known that they had no desire to become a permanent underclass in the new Federal Republic, but they clearly preferred integration and a return to normalcy to radicalism. Why then did leading Catholics consistently warn against a phenomenon that failed to occur? They knew little about their co-religionists from the East and had preconceived notions about the behaviour of human beings who had been robbed of their dignity and material possessions. Expellee clerics deliberately reinforced the fears of their West German colleagues to gain attention and assistance for Catholic expellees and themselves. Moreover, the magnitude of the expellee issue overwhelmed the Church.

Ciudad Guayana

Ciudad Guayana in Venezuela is one of the leading examples in the world of a city planned in accordance with the principles of comprehensive rational planning. It was started in the 1960s as a “growth pole” in an isolated part of Venezuela, built around a large steel plant and hydroelectric projects. In the 1990s, the model of planning shifted from centralized to decentralized as a result of the election victories of a radical political party and neoliberal restructuring that weakened central government. The story of this dramatic change contains lessons for planning in the context of the recent wave of expansion in the global economy.

Age, Stress and Support for Radical Political Parties: The Case of the Parti Quebecois

Abstract An effort has been made to examine systematically the effects of various types of status inconsistencies and perceived stress on support for radical political parties within various class and age categories in order to clarify ambiguities in previous research. In general, two broad hypotheses have been suggested: that stressful life situations are more likely to lead to radical support among young people since they are less committed to the political system and traditional political parties and are more open to change; and that stressful life situations are more likely to lead to radical political support among older people since they have less hope for their situation to improve. To test these hypotheses, we examine support for the separatist Parti Quebecois using a 1970 survey with 1587 francophone respondents from the province of Quebec. Findings from multiple regression suggest the following: political alienation is more likely to PQ lead to support among those under 35; status inconsistency is more likely to lead to PQ support among those in mid-life (36–59); and worry about financial future is the strongest predictor of support among those over 60. The findings confirm expectations about age differences in the effects of status concerns on radical political support.

Compulsion and Social Change: Is Authoritarianism the Solution to India's Economic Development Problems?

The view of critics like Myrdal that a solution to problems of mass poverty requires sweeping changes in established cultural attitudes and institutions which cannot be carried out through democratic methods remains influential in India among intellectuals and radical political parties. Yet, a frontal assault on the existing social order would delay or abort basic economic reforms by fragmenting large numbers of the poorer classes along more potent allegiances to religion, language, and caste. An alternative solution can be devised based on the distinction betweendirectandindirectobstacles to economic development which are part of the social setting. Direct constraints are found in patterns of land ownership and land tenure. By contrast, the cultural attitudes, caste structures, and power relations are indirect obstacles in the sense that they strengthen ideological and political patterns that stand in the way of agrarian reform. Under Indian conditions democratic rather than authoritarian institutions offer the best prospect over the long term for carrying out basic economic changes. They strengthen egalitarian values and provide an opportunity for direct organization of the more numerous lower castes to weaken both the legitimacy and power of the dominant landed castes—without risking the social disorder of a direct confrontation.

Changing Political Configurations in Swaziland

As Swaziland approaches independence and stands poised to enter the complex political arena of southern Africa, its internal political configurations are changing rapidly and profoundly. The previously irresistible coalition between the traditionally based Swazi Imbokodvo National Movement and the predominantly South African-oriented, conservative, white, United Swaziland Association has broken down, and the Imbokodvo has emerged as the overwhelming dominant force on the Swazi political scene. The coalition, which arose in 1964 to prevent the more radical Swazi political parties from gaining control of the legislative council in the June 1964 elections, arose out of a peculiar set of circumstances which developed in Swaziland after World War II.

The university student in South and South-East Asia

The widespread and furious involvement of university students in politics is one of the striking features of Asian history in the present century. In India, Burma and Japan university students have been initiators and agents in nationalist and independence movements, in the overthrow of governments and in the rapid growth of radical political factions and parties. In the course of this political activity, student indiscipline has developed its own well-established traditions in these countries. In Burma, India and Indonesia the activity of university and college students in the period prior to independence did not become less intense once independence was attained.

Labor's View of the Function of the Church

IT is my purpose in this article to try to state what the more radical and aggressive groups of workers in this country think about the Church and the function it fulfills and might fulfill in society. There is no doubt that among these groups one may find some positive hostility and bitterness toward the churches. Particularly among foreignspeaking workers in large industrial centers there is frequently a very definite line drawn between what are called church people and radicals or enlightened ones. The latter never expect any support from the former in labor-union work, and the former regard unions or radical political parties as agencies of the devil. If one seeks to analyze somewhat more closely the grounds for the feeling of hostility to the Church among some of the more aggressive workers, two considerations may be mentioned. In the first place, these workers hold that social institutions are primarily the product of the economic system and exist to support it. Our economic system is the system of capitalism, under which the ownership of the means of production is concentrated in the hands of a few, while workers own nothing but their labor-power which they have to sell like a commodity in a bitterly competitive market. The modern churches are a part of this system. They depend directly or indirectly upon the privileged classes for their financial support and social prestige. Consequently, whenever conflict arises between the masters and the workers, the churches will be found throwing the weight of their great moral influence in the community into the scale against labor. They are bound in a crisis to be reactionary. They are the natural foes of labor, and labor should look upon them as such. So runs the familiar indictment.