This article examines the current Danish reform of master's programmes as a case of contested marketization in higher education. While the reform aims to produce "labour-market-relevant" graduates by shortening degrees, introducing corporate programmes, and reducing enrolment, it reveals a fundamental tension between two competing economic logics: a neoliberal conception of students as human capital and a conventional view of labour as quantifiable work time. The emphasis on the latter by the Danish coalition government, particularly the Social Democrats, parallels their glorification of vocational work and disdain for intellectualism. Drawing on policy documents and public debate, the article shows how these logics coexist uneasily within the reform, combining aspirations to optimize students' individual investment decisions with efforts to increase the aggregate labour supply. The article further analyses the critiques the reform has generated. While traditional critiques emphasize the erosion of universities' role in cultivating democratic citizens, a "market critique" emerging from economic actors highlights the reform's failure on its own terms. This critique exposes the limits of centralized planning in engineering labour-market outcomes and points to unintended consequences. Building on this analysis, the article develops the concept of "impure resistance" to describe forms of critique that operate within, rather than outside, market rationalities. It argues that such internal critiques can open new avenues for coalition-building in contexts where democratic arguments struggle to resonate, while also underscoring their limitations. The article concludes that effective resistance to marketization must mobilize its internal contradictions rather than oppose it from a single normative standpoint.

ABSTRACT How did women's political inclusion shape the early development of the welfare state? We examine Sweden – one of the most egalitarian countries today – to explore the relationship between women's political representation and welfare state formation. Our focus is on the first local election after universal suffrage, analysing over 700 rural municipalities at a time when the welfare state was in its infancy, and women were newcomers in the political arena. Using data on welfare spending and original data on women's representation in municipal councils, we examine how the gender and party affiliation of local representatives relate to subsequent changes in social spending. Despite their small numbers, we find that Social Democratic women – unlike women from other parties or Social Democratic men – played a crucial role in expanding social spending, particularly in municipalities where the Social Democrats were strong. These findings enhance our understanding of women's early political representation in young democracies and political systems with limited women representation.

ABSTRACT The Albanese Labor Government proposed the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) as a centrepiece of its housing policy before the 2022 election. The HAFF funds social and affordable housing through the returns of an off-budget fund invested in global financial markets. This paper analyses the 2023 political debate around the HAFF. It uses the HAFF as a case study to examine the politics of financialised policymaking, investigating the political arguments made for financialised policies and the hegemony projects they represent. It is theoretically and methodologically framed by historical materialist policy analysis (HMPA), which calls for analysing policies in terms of the competing hegemony projects involved in their construction and contestation. I argue that Albanese Labor sees governing through financial markets as a central way to solve policy problems, and that this should give pause to celebrations of the return of social democracy in Australia after the 2025 election.

ABSTRACT The traditional aim of Western social democracy has been to create a society that is a ‘common possession’ of its members (in T.H. Marshall's words). Social democratic politics has therefore been both society‐making and membership‐making, orienting people to a shared society as an object of attachment and loyalty, and nurturing membership‐based conceptions of democracy and the welfare state. This aspiration to create a society that is the common possession of its members has underpinned many social justice movements. However, some commentators argue that this model cannot address the most pressing issues of today's world, and that we need to find a way to theorize politics that does not rest on ideas that individuals are ‘members’ of ‘societies’, or on ideas that politics should aim to orient people to a shared society as an object of loyalty and a basis for solidarity. In this article, I explore whether the ideal of society as a common possession of its members can be redeemed in the face of these critiques, and in particular whether it can be pluralized in a way that respects the experiences and aspirations of racialized minorities and Indigenous peoples.

ABSTRACT Contemporary approaches to right-wing ‘populism’ commonly focus upon charismatic demagogues and radical right ideology which act to mobilize popular political support through deceit, manipulation, enmity and scapegoating. This article however takes a different approach. Focusing upon the production of radical right ideology, I examine how intellectuals of the radical right have come to understand and portray the institutions of liberal and social democracy as fundamentally deceptive. Developing an original reading of the American paleoconservatives and the French New Right I show how they rely upon a very specific concept of deception. I argue that via Pareto, Burnham, Machiavelli, the counter-revolutionary thought of Burke, and right-wing interpretations of Nietzsche, the legacy of the French NR and American paleoconservatives involves the development of a dogmatic account of deception. The French NR and American paleoconservatives, thus, through a limited reading of Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony, develop a grand historical narrative and a political sociology in which deception is tied to only specific ideas and agents in history. The result is the construction of an ideological standpoint in which any political opponent or institution linked to ideas of ‘universal’ equality and human rights are framed as fundamentally deceptive.

The Slovak provincial organisation of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers’ Party was formed in 1918, evolving out of its pre-war existence as an autonomous section of Hungarian Social Democracy. Its integration into the organisational structures of the Czech Social Democratic Party reflected both long-standing cooperation between the two movements since the late nineteenth century and the political realities created by the establishment of the Czechoslovak state. This realignment was framed by the doctrine of Czechoslovakism, which postulated the existence of a unified Czechoslovak nation and functioned as an integrative response to ethnic nationalism and centrifugal tendencies within a multinational polity. In the early years of the Republic, Slovak Social Democrats aligned themselves closely with the defence of Czechoslovak state unity, together with the Agrarian Party and the Czechoslovak National Socialists. Although this stance initially proved electorally advantageous – most notably in the parliamentary elections of 1920 – it soon became a political liability. As Slovak political life matured, electoral support increasingly shifted towards autonomist programmes, articulated most effectively by Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party. As a result, Slovak Social Democracy experienced a sustained decline in electoral support, descending from a leading political force to a marginal, albeit persistent, presence within the party system. This trajectory was further exacerbated by an internal party crisis in the early 1920s, when the secession of radical socialist factions and the establishment of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia significantly weakened the party’s organisational base. The resulting fragility constrained its ability to translate electoral representation into durable influence within executive office, despite the prominence of several individual figures at the national level. The party’s final political engagements unfolded against the backdrop of the Munich crisis of 1938, when its leadership participated in negotiations over Slovak autonomy. Its initial refusal to endorse the Žilina Agreement proved short-lived; the subsequent reversal, however, failed to prevent the party’s dissolution. During the Second World War, former Social Democratic activists were relegated to clandestine political activity. Beyond formal politics, Slovak Social Democrats sought to shape public discourse through the party press and affiliated organisations. Persistent financial constraints, however, rendered these initiatives structurally fragile, resulting in a volatile landscape of short-lived periodicals at provincial and local levels. In contrast to the Czech lands – where dense networks of affiliated organisations enhanced Social Democratic mobilisation – the Slovak organisation remained comparatively under-institutionalised. This dimension of Social Democratic activity in Slovakia has thus far received only limited attention in the historiography.

ABSTRACT The paper adopts an approach derived from critical theory and structuralism. It sets itself four main tasks. Firstly, to set the discussion within an engagement with vocational education and training (VET) that serves to explore its conceptualisations, considering their limits and radical possibilities. This section morphs into the second, which examines the capitalocene, which locates the climate crisis in the context of class society. Here again, there is an engagement with VET which requires its re-thinking, allied with the necessity to move beyond neo-liberalism and more specifically capitalism. It calls for the development of an anti-capitalist stance that could transcend the status quo. The third section draws on a literature that, whilst critiquing neo-liberalism, rests on a capitalist terrain. The fourth section revisits the English policy context in which VET is located. It calls for not only a rethinking of VET, together with its links to social democracy, but also an acknowledgement of social antagonism and a recognition of struggle.

The article presents a comparative analysis of research approaches to understanding the events of the Peasant War of 1524–1525 in the German lands by W. Bloch and K. Kautsky. The works published in the scientific and educational journal "Die Neue Zeit" were written by the authors during the period of the Exceptional Law Against Socialists (from October 22, 1878, to September 30, 1890). The scholarly-journalistic narrative style of W. Bloch showed stylistic and content similarities with the tradition of W. Zimmermann, while K. Kautsky's theoretical discourse was based on the methodology of historical materialism by F. Engels. There was rivalry between the authors, two prominent social democrats, for the position of editor-in-chief of "Die Neue Zeit," primarily explained by significant differences in their ideological views. These disagreements in understanding socialism found reflection in the historical narrative of the Peasant War. The use of the historical-comparative method in this research is due to the necessity to substantiate the conceptual differences in the interpretation of the Peasant War in the German lands of 1524–1525 by representatives of two distinct ideological currents within German social democracy. The authors were interested in different aspects of the historical event, and thus their research objectives also differed. W. Bloch aimed to awaken a sense of class solidarity among the proletarian milieu, using the heroic image of Florian Geyer as a value-oriented reference. In his analysis, he primarily adhered to general democratic positions. In contrast, K. Kautsky relied on the methodological foundation of historical materialism, interpreting the events of the Peasant War strictly in terms of class struggle and socio-economic formations. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the systemic analysis and introduction of the little-studied works of K. Kautsky and W. Bloch into the domestic scientific discourse, dedicated to the history of the Peasant War of the 16th century. Despite their scientific significance, they have been rarely translated into Russian and have not become the subject of comprehensive study.

Abstract The transition of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) into proactive agents for the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda requires a profound transformation in institutional governance and communication. This article analyzes the design and foundation of a Strategic Plan for University Social Responsibility (USR) at the Department of Economic Sciences, National University of San Juan (Argentine). Grounded in the historical legacy of the 1918 University Reform, the study positions of the Argentine public university are critical laboratories for decolonizing global sustainability narratives through the lens of social justice and knowledge democratization. The proposed Strategic Plan serves as a communicative and navigational tool to shift from fragmented outreach activities to systemic institutional learning, offering a replicable framework for HEIs in Latin America and beyond.

Drawing on anthropological approaches to morality, this paper examines the moral sources that underpin sustained socialist organizing among organizers in the New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA) following the 2016 presidential election. Based on narrative interviews with highly engaged NYC-DSA organizers, the analysis shows how organizers draw on two primary moral sources in their accounts of becoming political organizers, imbuing their continued political engagement with meaning. First, the paper highlights how organizers articulate moral positions that predate their political engagement, offering insight into how recollections of earlier moral concerns shape their narrated trajectories into organizing. Second, the narratives reveal the importance of the 2016 presidential election as a shared moral reference point. The analysis identifies two properties that define the “ethical affordances” of this event: in organizers’ accounts, Sanders’ campaign created a structured moral space that helped coordinate existing values, while Trump’s election infused political engagement with a sense of urgency, framing action as a moral obligation. The findings suggest that organizers’ narrative accounts of their political trajectories provide insight into processes of collective moral coordination and the formation of coherent moral frameworks that sustain ongoing activism. The study underscores the juridical and formative dimensions of morality in social movements, showing how narrative interpretation brings together a confluence of moral sources that orient continued political engagement. By illuminating the dynamic relationships among prior moral concerns, politically consequential events, and collective action, the paper advances cultural approaches to social movements by foregrounding the role of narrative moral interpretation in sustaining activism over time.

A recent survey (n=986) by this research team as part of a project entitled ‘When Music Speaks’ found that female, career-oriented musicians in Denmark were an at-risk group for clinically significant anxiety. This article draws on semi-structured interviews with eight female respondents to this survey to explore potential psychosocial causes. We undertake thematic analysis within a theoretical architecture of ‘believability’, and in doing so acknowledge the need to believe something which, in the economy of believability, may appear un believable: high rates of anxiety among female musicians in a country famed for high levels of subjective wellbeing and apparent gender equality. As a possible explanation, we highlight psychic disjunctures experienced by interviewees; disjunctures between an imaginary of Denmark rooted in egalitarian social democracy committed publicly to principles of innovation, gender equality and social cohesion, contrasted with the anxious lived experience of the women we spoke to (which they wanted others to believe), being one of musical conservativism, restrictive cultural norms and loneliness. This article contributes towards sociologically-oriented and theoretically-underpinned literature into musicians’ mental health, global scholarship on the occupational psychosocial lives of female musicians, and cultural, political and anthropological work on Danish society.

ABSTRACT While prevailing accounts portray social democratic parties as liberal-democratic bulwarks eroded by rising illiberal populism, this article highlights the emergence of anti-liberal ideological projects from within the center-left itself. It does so by examining the ideological innovation of the post-communist social democratic left in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), focusing on the cases of Czechia and Slovakia. In both countries, over the decade following EU accession in 2004, some politicians and ideological entrepreneurs developed a culturally conservative vision of post-communist social democracy that critiqued West European social democratic models. This alternative emphasized national sovereignty, cultural and national cohesion, and the reassertion of the state’s developmental role, often aligning rhetorically and politically with right-wing populist and conservative forces. Drawing on speeches, interviews and writings, this article examines how the project reframed East–West relationships and framed social liberalism, immigration and multiculturalism as threats to social democratic concepts of solidarity and fairness. The article situates these developments within broader ideological shifts in CEE and contrasts them with parallel debates on the West European left. It concludes by reflecting on whether such conservative variants of social democracy marked a turn toward illiberalism – or an ideological current with democratic potential in a post-liberal era.

The aim of this article is to analyse the political and social conditions that led to the early elections to the Alþingi on 30 November 2024. Public dissatisfaction with the three-party coalition government – the Independence Party, the Progressive Party and the Left-Green Movement – caused internal dysfunction. The main disputes concerned immigration issues, economic and public finance issues, and the scope of social policy. In their election programmes, the main parties emphasised proposals to remedy the situation in these areas. The parliamentary elections, the first under the new electoral law, proved to be a success for the centre-right parties and reduced the fragmentation of the Alþingi. Representatives of five of the eleven parties participating in the elections won seats, with the Icelandic Social Democratic Alliance winning the most. The left-wing parties suffered a defeat, losing their seats in the Alþingi and finding themselves outside it. The new coalition government led by Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir, based on the so-called Valkyrie coalition, has the majority suport in Alþingi. The article’s main hypothesis is that Iceland’s political system will evolve in a center-right direction after the elections, and the current strong, extreme environmental, gender, and pro-immigration rhetoric has reached an impasse. This could lead to the completion of the constitutional reforms initiated in 2010–2011.

ABSTRACT Academic research is increasingly questioning whether the goals of competition law should extend beyond the traditional focus on economic efficiency and consumer welfare to include non‐economic issues such as social justice, democracy, environmental sustainability and equality. In this regard, the African experience is particularly valuable since public interest considerations (PICs) are a feature of merger control regimes in many African countries. After an analysis of PICs in Africa, the paper zooms in on South Africa's extensive experience in the field, particularly its legal test for determining when PICs are justified in merger assessment and offers recommendations that could inform other countries. Drawing on the South Africa merger assessment, this paper recommends that PICs and the competition standard be analysed separately but in an interrelated manner, as they complement each other. The likely effect of the merger on specific public interests must be identified and considered only when it is substantial and linked to the merger. Additionally, a merger should be prohibited only if the proposed remedies seeking to address the negative effects on the specific PIC are inadequate, inappropriate, disproportionate or unenforceable. Importantly, when PICs collide, competition agencies should balance each public interest against the others, focusing on whether the likely effect is substantial or whether the remedies are inadequate. In sum, competition agencies should adopt public‐interest merger guidelines that provide businesses with the necessary guidance on the legal test and procedures, enhancing legal certainty and attracting investment.

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of defectors from the Soviet Union in the first years after the end of the Great Patriotic War. The author focuses on the attitude of the old Russian Social Democrats, who were in exile in the United States, toward the defectors. The article draws on documents from the Hoover Institution’s War, Revolution, and Peace Archives (Stanford, USA), the Bakhmetev Archives of Russian and East European Culture at Columbia University (New York, USA), the Archives of the Center for East European Studies at the University of Bremen (Germany), and others. The author shows that a group of Soviet defectors who were in Displaced Persons camps in Germany came into contact with representatives of the Menshevik émigré center in the late 1940s. On the basis of this group, the German Department of the League of Struggle for People’s Freedom was created, which claimed to act as a key Russian émigré organization with a democratic orientation. The article shows that the defectors received funding from the USA, various foundations and non-governmental organizations through the mediation of the old Mensheviks. The result of this action was the exposure of the leader of the group of defectors Major Vasily Denisov as an agent of the Soviet secret services. The article proves that this case was not an isolated phenomenon: a number of defectors broke with anti-communist émigré organizations and decided to return to the Soviet Union. The author comes to the conclusion that the reason for this was the disappointment of many defectors in the values of Western democracy, their critical attitude to the spiritual atmosphere within Western societies and the political elite of the USA.

This article traces the political evolution of Michael Burawoy’s self-declared Marxism; doing so leads to the discovery of two distinctive Michael Burawoys. The first advocated for a Marxism with microfoundations in which the workplace acts as the source of micro-institutions and lived experiences that shape class identities and actions and thus mediates the relationship between relations of production and class formation. This Michael Burawoy defended the centrality of class to Marxism while rejecting ‘messianic Marxism’ and ‘naïve workerism’. However, this Burawoy was bitterly disappointed by the failure of democratic socialism to emerge from the collapse of state socialism. From the ashes of state socialism, a second Michael Burawoy emerged advocating for ‘sociological Marxism’ and rejecting the theoretical importance of exploitation and the working class. Civil society was held up instead as the key agency resisting marketization, initially in the form of ‘real utopias’ and later via ‘public sociology’. However, in relying on the volunteerism of academics, Burawoy ironically slipped into a Marxism without microfoundations. This article concludes by restating the case for a Marxism with microfoundations and a ‘politics of production’ that enables the exploration of the relationship between work and class formation.

The article attempts to show the attitude of the exiled social democrats, members of the Russian revolutionary movement, to the situation of the indigenous peoples in Siberia, based on the study of their published memoirs, correspondence, and journalism. Many social democrats who spent long periods of time in “sinister” places expressed a serious interest in studying the local area. They made a significant contribution to the local lore of Siberia, along with previous generations of exiled revolutionaries, such as the Decembrists, Populists, and Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) members. In the fragments of memoirs and journalism, information can be found not only about the history, geography, natural conditions, and economic development of the area, but also about occupations, customs, and everyday life of the indigenous population in the Turukhansk District of the Yenisei Governorate, the Narymsk District of the Tomsk Governorate, the Tobolsk Governorate, etc. The essence is revealed of the colonial policy of the Tsarist government, local administration, and merchant capital towards the indigenous Siberian population. In spite of the fact that local lore aspects are presented mainly in the form of brief excursuses, they contain little-known facts being of certain interest to modern local lore studies in Siberia. Their analysis shows that, despite harsh conditions of exile in Siberia, political exiles treated the indigenous Siberian peoples with respect and sympathy. The authors associated their development and dignified existence, as well as those of the entire Russian people, with a radical change in the social order.

This paper examines the evolving landscape of economic growth in post-Brexit Britain, focussing on key policy initiatives such as Growth Deals, the Levelling Up agenda and Building Sustainable Prosperity. It critically analyses the effectiveness of these policies in addressing regional disparities and promoting inclusive growth. The study looks at growth coalitions and regime theory to explore the alliances between business leaders, politicians and other stakeholders that drive local development. The paper also critiques the neoliberal emphasis on market-driven development, highlighting its role in exacerbating social and economic inequalities. In contrast, the paper explores alternative frameworks like community wealth building, social democracy and cooperative models, drawing on successful examples from Spain’s Basque Country and the Mondragón Corporation. These models emphasise social equity, local empowerment and sustainable practices, offering a more inclusive approach to economic development. The study further contextualises these issues within the global experiences of Northern Ireland, Great Britain and Spain, identifying the need for context-specific strategies that prioritise long-term sustainability, community participation and social well-being. In post-Brexit Britain, these challenges have been intensified by the disruption of long-standing governance arrangements and funding architectures previously underpinned by EU Structural Funds. Ultimately, the paper argues for a rethinking of traditional growth paradigms in the post-Brexit context, advocating for models that ensure balanced and equitable growth across all regions.

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the climate politics of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as a diagnostic case for the structural limitations facing eco-socialist movements under capitalism. Combining eco-Marxist critique, world-systems and ecological imperialism perspectives, and Marxist state and organizational theory, this article reconstructs DSA’s climate agenda from ideological foundations to strategic practice, and then explains why its transformative ambitions are systematically mediated by capitalist structures. The analysis highlights three interlocking limitations: the unresolved growth imperative embedded in value-driven accumulation; the imperial-core location of U.S. climate politics, which risks reproducing unequal ecological exchange and climate debt relations; and the limits of pursuing anti-capitalist goals through capitalist state institutions and Democratic Party mediation. The article argues that these contradictions – between green growth and ecological limits, national reform and global justice, and state-centered strategy and systemic transformation – are not unique to DSA but are structural conditions confronting left climate projects more broadly.

The rise of uncivil speech in digital public spheres has prompted concern about its effects on democracy. This paper explores the relationship between incivility in social media and democracy, moving beyond simplistic claims that uncivil discourse is inherently harmful. It argues that different conceptions of why democracy is valuable—versions of egalitarian and electoral conceptions—offer distinct evaluative standpoints for the democratic consequences of incivility. Under egalitarian conceptions, incivility undermines democracy by silencing marginalized voices, reinforcing hierarchies of social status, or by degrading the deliberative processes that contribute to democratic legitimacy. Under electoral conceptions incivility poses a democratic problem either when it reduces political trust that impairs the value of accountability or when it erodes norms of legitimate opposition that are essential for civil peace. By analyzing these frameworks, the paper clarifies when and why incivility may pose a genuine threat to democracy while also proposing how to navigate conflicts between restraint and inclusion by advancing a novel account of the duties of civility in the public sphere.