试论布莱尔的第三条道路

本文论述了布莱尔第三条道路的价值观念、主要内容、政策和理论框架,并初步探讨其政策实践的绩效与存在的问题,进一步分析布莱尔第三条道路的内在矛盾和局限性,从而为我国目前和谐社会的建设提供一些有效的帮助与启示.     

后第三条道路时代的英国工党

工党进入后第三条道路时代指的是布莱尔下台后,工党继续在"第三条道路"的框架下探索前进的道路,只是这种探索不再涉及理论层面,而是进入到具体策略层面。这一判断的依据有二:一是"第三条道路"提出的时代背景没有改变,英国工党不可能重回激进左翼的老路,继续在"第三条道路"框架下探索改革的途径是唯一选择;二是"第三条道路"可划分为三个层次,目前进入到具体策略层次。后第三条道路时代的工党危机重重,并且失去了执政的地位,但是工党正好借此机会反省自己、重新调整,可以说选举的失利给了工党一次重新洗牌的机会。     

从吉登斯的“第三条道路”看民主社会主义理论的新变化

苏东剧变后西方社会出现的一个重要政治现象就是以吉登斯为代表的第三条道路这一新理论和政策主张的提出,其试图走一条超越传统民主社会主义和新自由主义的道路。拟运用文献研究与比较分析研究的方法,以第三条道路的提出背景和主要内容为切入点,通过对其与传统民主社会主义进行分析和比较,折射出当代民主社会主义发展的新变化,进而深入剖析其理论的实质,得出吉登斯的第三条道路理论仍然是资产阶级改良主义的结论,坚定我们走科学社会主义道路的信心。     

"第三条道路"与传统民主社会主义相比较之异同

布莱尔等标榜的第三条道路,既不是资本主义与社会主义之间的"半社会主义"、也不是社会党与共产党之间的"第三种社会主义",确切地说,它实际上是社会民主主义与欧洲保守主义之间的所谓"第三"选择.工党的自由主义化并不始自布莱尔与其精神导师吉登斯,但布莱尔、吉登斯的"新工党理念"的确使这一进程迈进了一大步.为适应经济、科技、社会、阶级和生存环境等各方面全球性变化,新工党提出的新的社会民主主义的理论和政策,与传统民主社会主义相比,在几个方面表现出新的时代特点和变化.     

浅议民主革命时期第三条道路的产生及影响

以国民党为代表的大资产阶级主张建立一个亲美的资本主义国家,以共产党为代表的无产阶级希望建立一个人民当家做主的社会主义国家。作为第三方的民主党派对这两种建国方案并不满意,从而提出了第三条道路的设想。随着新民主主义革命形势的发展,这种希望破灭了。第三条道路的失败,使民众看清了形势,暴露了资产阶级的软弱性,也证明了改良主义在中国是行不通的。第三条道路的产生有其必然性,对历史和今天都有着重要的警示作用。     

论作为第三条道路的合作政府

作为公共行政危机的拯救者,新公共管理运动通过推行市场化、弹性化、分散化和企业化的治理模式以求达到政府管理的高效率.新公共服务在批评新公共管理片面追求效率而忽视民主价值的同时对新公共管理进行了价值上的修正.而合作政府的提出则是为了克服新公共管理运动所导致的"碎片化"组织的弊病,它通过寻求跨组织的联合、打破组织内部的界限、采取新的服务提供方式等使得政府能够真正对公共管理负责.无论是上述哪种理论都意味着现在官僚制乌托邦陷入危机,而新的范武仍然需要进一步的探索.     

第三条道路内的理论分歧

第三条道路宣称它既不是旧式的国家社会主义,又不是自由市场的新自由主义,而是把新自由主义者所强调的经济效率和活力与传统左派所关注的平等与社会凝聚力结合起来,这颇似一幅完整的政策框架,但实际上其内部存在着重大的理论差异,甚至是完全不同的政治工程,既有代表现代社会民主的平等思想,又有现代托利主义左派"一个民族国家"的思想.因此,所谓的第三条道路实际上是一个多元性的政策框架,这种内在的多元性特点,既有助于左派建立广泛的政治联盟,孤立主张自由市场的右派,但由于其政治观点的模棱两可又容易疏远那些希望根据明确思想而采取行动的支持者,使人担心第三条道路的生命力.     

论当代欧美的第三条道路思潮

20世纪 90年代在欧美兴起的“第三条道路”思潮 ,是西方左翼政党及其领导人为解决当前资本主义世界面临的新问题而提出的一种新的政治理论。它经济上主张重新界定政府的宏观调控作用 ,以积极的福利取代注重再分配的传统福利 ,达到社会的进一步公平 ;政治上主张革新 ,下放权利 ,还政于民 ,恢复人民对政治的信念 ;对外战略上 ,谋求和维护在国际事务中的领导地位 ,推行霸权主义。它对资本主义发展起到了积极的指导作用。正确认识“第三条道路”思潮及其发展变化 ,对于制定我们自己的内外政策有着重要意义     

历史比较中的"第三条道路"思潮

“第三条道路”经历了十月革命胜利之前时期的萌芽、十月革命至二战结束时期的形成、二战结束到苏联解体冷战时期的发展、20世纪90年代中期以来的重新兴起四个阶段。“第三条道路”不是一个新名词,概念内涵也不十分明确,其存在有客观必然性,实质上是走资本主义道路。     

“第三条道路”与西方社会政策转型

"第三条道路"是20世纪90年代出现于西方国家的一种重要的社会政治思潮,反映了西方左派在新的历史条件下的努力尝试,其理论观点涉及政治、经济、社会以及文化等众多领域。在社会政策领域,"第三条道路"对福利国家及其改革作出重新反思,提出"无责任即无权利",倡导积极的福利观和建立社会投资性国家,标志了西方社会政策新的转型。而西方社会政策转型的理论与实践,对于我国社会政策体系的建立和完善无疑具有重要借鉴意义。     

The Third Way: the Dutch experience

The Third Way in the Netherlands rests upon the institutionalized co-operation between the trade unions, the employers' organizations and the state. During the period of high unemployment in the 1980s this co-operation led to several agreements to moderate wage costs and to reduce statutory working hours with the object of reducing unemployment. In the 1990s,when labour became scarce, new measures were agreed upon to increase participation in the labour market and to boost productivity. Critics of the agreements suggest that the policies adopted by the socio-economic partners in the 1980s, particularly the moderation of wages and the reduction of work time to create more jobs, have a negative effect on the long-term prospects of attaining higher productivity.     

An Obituary for the Third Way: The Financial Crisis and Social Democracy in Europe

Why has the financial crisis not served as an occasion for social democratic revival? It is because, with the ‘Third Way’, European social democracy became imbricated with the financial system in crisis to such an extent that it is in no position to offer an alternative to it. The financial crisis is the crisis of the Third Way. Furthermore, the Third Way was based on the faulty premise that it was possible to replicate USA's apparent success in the 1990s, which, however, was based on very particular conditions. The argument is pursued with reference to inter alia Third Way ideology, transatlantic relations, the political economy of capitalist variety, and the political sociology of mass parties.     

New Labour,New Protest? How the Liberal Democrats Profited from Blair's Mistakes

Traditionally, the Liberal Democrats and their predecessors have gained seats from Labour and have always seen their support fall during a Labour government. In 2005, and in by-elections from 2003, the party reversed that trend. Yet, apart from particular success amongst Muslims, the resulting change in the social geography of Liberal Democrat support was not accompanied by any major change in the social and ideological character of the individuals who voted for it. The Liberal Democrats remain very much a party whose fortunes rests on its ability to garner protest votes; they are now simply able to secure such support from previous Labour voters too, perhaps because of their perceived ideological proximity to Labour. If the party's support rests once again at the next election on support for centre-left principles, this raises difficult issues if the party appears to be willing to put the Conservatives into government.     

Islamists in the “Rainbow” Coalition

In the 1980s, Britain’s Labour Party promoted a system of race-relations that envisioned Britain as a collection of discrete cultures with equal status. This multicultural model for organizing society conflicted with traditional British notions of a unified national culture, with an assimilationist model of immigrant incorporation. Today, the Labour Party’s relationship with Islamists is sharply dividing Labour’s “rainbow” constituency. Whereas the horrific events of 9/11 and 7/7 have led many Labour leaders to replace its defense of multiculturalism with Tory-sounding calls for immigrant assimilation, other Labour leaders are working harder than ever to accommodate their Muslim constituents.

Travelling with vehicular ideas: The case of the third Way

In all the various debates around Anthony Giddens's Third Way sequence, few attempts have been made to characterize its logic and impact as a type of discourse, a certain mode of ideas-work. The first dimension of this paper involves deploying Thomas Osborne's categories to depict the Third Way as a ‘vehicular’ idea, with the intellectual style of Giddens himself correlatively framed as that of a new sort of ‘mediator’. In these terms, the essential inclusiveness and indeterminacy of the Third Way series of texts is illustrated, and the issue of what counts as ideas ‘success’ in the vehicular mode is broached. Second, in line with the inherent mobility of vehicular ideas, I identify the keynote shifts in Third Way thinking over time, including the sociological register that it occupies, its pragmatism and its relationship to New Labour politics. In a third phase, the article takes up questions about the role of the critical intellectual today and the practical, though not theoretical, recovery of ‘ideology-critique’ in appraising ideas like the Third Way. The scope and limits of the very notion of ‘vehicularity’ itself are central to this discussion.     

Contracts, Compacts and Control: New Labour and Personal Responsibility

The 2004 report Personal Responsibility and Changing Behaviour: The State of Knowledge and its Implications for Public Policy by the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit is an attempt to draw together social science literature that explains why it is difficult for governments to influence individual citizens. Underlying this is the idea that across diverse areas of policy, state provision of services often has much less impact on outcomes than does an individual's behaviour. Therefore to improve outcomes, government needs to be able to encourage 'personal responsibility'. The authors focus mainly on the role of contracts in changing behaviour in a whole range of different areas; from ASBOs and crime prevention, to home-school agreements and education policy. This report appears to underpin much of the thinking within New Labour as to future policy, and reveals how ideas of personal responsibility are likely to be key to New Labour's manifesto commitments prior to the 2005 general election.     

Feral Beasts: An Introduction to Tony Blair's Reuters Speech on the Media

One of Prime Minister Blair's last speeches was on his governments relationship to the media, and the at times damaging impact of the 'sensation hungry media' on every aspect of public life, many of whom were too frightened to take on the 'feral beasts'. He argued that his government had to attempt to deal with the media power, that 'spin' is an attempt to handle that power, that the media attack private life and that in the end the media must manage themselves. The piece includes his speech, the revealing questions and answers, and commentary on them by a series of distinguished journalists and academics.     

100 Years On: Who are the Inheritors of the ‘New Liberal’ Mantle?

The 'great divorce' of progressive politics at the end of the nineteenth century permanently altered British politics. While the philosophies of the Labour movement and the Liberal Party had many common elements, ideologically they diverged on issues of the role of liberty and the state in relation to the individual and the community to the point that they became irreconcilable. New Liberalism was one result of that debate. Contemporary political debate reflects many of the same features as the turmoil present a century ago, and the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats are again contesting much of the same ground. This article seeks to draw out the salient aspects of this debate to conclude which, if either, party is the inheritor of the New Liberal tradition.     

The Future of Socialism and New Labour: An Appraisal

Recently, much controversy has been generated about what Tony Crosland would have made of New Labour. Critics and supporters of the Blair project alike have laid claim to Crosland's legacy. For some it is evidence of New Labour's integrity; for others it confirms the party's betrayal of social democratic values. An examination of the arguments in The Future of Socialism indicates that it is neither. In this article, I offer a new appraisal of that text that challenges the orthodox analysis of it. Most accounts present the volume as a theoretical and original statement, one seeking to align British socialism with Swedish social democracy. I argue that the volume does not offer this kind of original contribution to debates about socialism. It is neither primarily a theoretical volume nor one that breaks decisively with the insularity that has shaped the trajectory of British socialism. I maintain that the importance of Crosland's legacy is emotional and symbolic: it offers Labour a charismatic and reassuring image of the party's past.