Introduction: The Progressive Dilemma in British Politics

This special edition reflects on the contemporary relevance of the insights and concerns of David Marquand's book The Progressive Dilemma. In this Introduction, the editors set the scene for these reflections. They consider the structural changes that have occurred in politics since the 1990s: the impact of globalisation, the erosion of class identities, the rise of ‘identity politics’ and the continued fragmentation of the party system. There has been no reconciliation between the parties of the centre‐left, nor any re‐examination of the ‘liberal tradition’ and the potential for a new synthesis with revisionist social democracy. On the one hand, Corbynism is a radicalised metropolitan species of liberalism, while on the other there are plenty in Labour who stress the need for the party to re‐engage with the traditional, socially conservative values of the working class in a new ‘postliberal’ appeal. Yet the authors argue that those who broadly identify with progressive causes in British politics—animated by the various overlapping strands of social liberalism, social democracy and liberal socialism—have still to work out how to address the historic failings that Marquand so eloquently exposed, to create a new and inspiring intellectual vision that unites and energises the left and centre‐left.     

The Politics of Social Welfare Reform in Urban China: Social Welfare Preferences and Reform Policies

China’s social welfare reform since the mid-1980s has been characterized as incremental and fragmented in three dimensions—social insurance, privatization, and targeting. This paper attempts to explore the micro-foundation of China’s urban social welfare reform by examining the diverse social welfare preferences and the cleavages among societal groups. It argues that the diversity of the societal groups’ preferences for social welfare has given rise to two lines of cleavage in urban China with respect to social welfare—between state sector and non-state sector employees and between labor market insiders and outsiders. The Chinese authoritarian regime’s political priority—economic growth with social stability—has induced the government to accommodate public social welfare preferences in social welfare policies. Therefore, the three dimensions of Chinese social welfare reform policies since the mid-1980s reflect and respond to the social cleavages derived from societal groups’ different preferences for social welfare.     

'Beyond Left and Right': The New Partisan Politics of Welfare

The 'new politics of the welfare state,' the term coined by Pierson (1996) to differentiate between the popular politics of welfare expansion and the unpopular politics of retrenchment, emphasizes a number of factors that distinguish countries' capacities to pursue contentious measures and avoid electoral blame. Policy structures, vested interests, and institutions play a prominent role in accounting for cross-national differences in leaders' abilities to diffuse responsibility for divisive initiatives. One important omission from the 'new politics' literature, however, is a discussion of partisan politics. 'Old' conceptualizations of the political right and left are implicitly taken as constants despite radical changes in the governing agenda of many leftist parties over the last decade. Responding to this oversight, Castles (1998) has recently probed the role of parties with respect to aggregate government expenditures, only to concludethat parties do not matter under 'conditions of constraint.' This article contends that parties are relevant to the 'new politics' and that, under specified institutional conditions, their impact is counterintuitive. In some notable cases the left has had more effect inbruising the welfare state than the right. One explanation for these cross-cutting tendencies is that parties not only provide a principal source of political agency, they also serve as strategies, thereby conditioning opportunities for political leadership. By extension, they need to be situatedwithin the 'new politics' constellation of blame-avoidance instruments.     

The Elite Politics of Media Advocacy in Human Rights

ABSTRACT

Advocacy nongovernmental organizations based in the North adopt digital tools to bypass repressive regimes, raise awareness amongst global publics, sustain grassroots activists in the South, and engage in political action. Social media was expected to offer innovative platforms for mobilizing participants to act on behalf of “distant others.” But the practices of some organizations signal that something else is at play. Rather than empower individuals, digital campaigns reify elite politics, using outsider strategies to support insider lobbying. Through communicative processes of mediatization, organizations pay homage to the existence of a movement, but only afford thin forms of participation. Using the framework of media advocacy to explore Human Rights Watch and the Enough! Project, we argue that social media becomes a top-down platform that exacerbates the elite design of organizations, enabling them to assert legitimacy for political actions, while disingenuously marketing themselves as democratic with bottom-up credibility.     

The Politics of Coercive Federalism in the Bush Era

During the period of the Bush Presidency, the federal governmentproceeded to centralize and nationalize policy in major areasformerly controlled by states and localities. The extensionof federal goals and standards to such areas as education testing,sales tax collection, emergency management, infrastructure,and elections administration were among the areas of significantmandates and preemptions. The continuation of policy centralizationin areas under a conservative and unified political regime showshow strong and deep the roots are for centralizing policy actionsin our intergovernmental system.     

The Gag Reflex: Disgust Rhetoric and Gay Rights in American Politics

Political scientists have increasingly looked to the role that disgust plays in shaping public opinion and attitudes. This emotion plays an important role in building and reinforcing boundaries in the polity. It is particularly important in shaping attitudes toward gay rights. We analyze data from the 1993 American National Election Studies (ANES) data and two original studies. We find that disgust is a powerful but contingent rhetorical tool. It can powerfully shape public attitudes, especially on issues of sexual purity, but that efficacy must come with a strong caveat: our findings show that some members of the public will reject disgust rhetoric as an indignant reaction against the speaker.