The Tea Party and the Crisis of Neoliberalism: Mainstreaming New Right Populism in the Corporate News Media

Within months of Barack Obama's election, a putatively grass-roots conservative uprising emerged to challenge the Democratic Party's agenda. In this article, we analyze the role of cable news in the rise of the Tea Party during the current “crisis of neoliberalism”—a moment of political-economic volatility brought about by the Great Recession. We argue that the Tea Party's political purpose is to hold together the New Right coalition of business elites and white working- and middle-class Americans that undergirds the neoliberal political project. In the context of a deregulated corporate mass media, we show that both “right-wing” and “moderate” cable networks mainstreamed the Tea Party by framing it as a legitimate social movement, enabling the widespread projection of right-wing populist discourse in support of neoliberalism. In light of our study, we suggest that democratizing the mass media is crucial for a sustained progressive political response in the United States.     

Political Branding: The Tea Party and Its Use of Participation Branding

The emergence of the Tea Party movement in 2009 witnessed the surfacing of a populist, anti-Obama libertarian mobilization within the United States. The Tea Party, a movement that brought together a number of disparate groups—some new, some established—utilized participation branding where the consumer attributed the movement its own identity and brand. Its consumer-facing approach, lack of one single leader, and lack of a detailed party platform, in combination with its impact on the 2010 election races in America, earmarks it as a contemporary and unconventional brand phenomenon worthy of investigation.     

论党员的知情权

知情权是党员行使其他各项民主权利的前提和基础。目前,在党员知情权的落实方面,还存在着知情范围有限、内容流于表面、渠道狭窄和保障措施缺乏等问题。为切实保障党员的知情权,必须实现党内事务的公开化,建立健全党务公开制度。具体要从完善党内情况通报和情况反映制度,健全党务公开责任制和监督评价机制两方面努力。     

行政指导相对人及其权利保障

行政指导属于一种延续性行为,是一个从作出到发生效果的动态变化过程。就行政指导单方面而言,它是一种行政事实行为,行政主体与相对人之间没有形成行政法律关系。但是,当行政相对人接受行政指导后,其性质必然发生变化而成为一种行政法律行为,构成一种行政法律关系。在行政指导法律关系中,行政主体是义务主体,行政相对人是权利主体。由于行政指导相对人的权益与行政指导主体的指导行为休戚相关,而行政指导主体本身所具有的“自利性”倾向极容易导致行政相对人的合法权益受到损害,所以必须强调使行政相对人充分享有知情权、程序抗辩权、受平等对待权和申请救济权以作保障。     

Bewitched—The Tea Party Movement: Ideas,Interests and Institutions

This article considers the development of the Tea Party movement, the character of its thinking and the nature of the interests and constituencies to which it is tied. The article suggests that despite the importance of ideas and interests, and the process of interaction between them, the movement has also been shaped and energised by institutional arrangements. In particular, it argues that there are significant numbers of independent or ‘detached’ conservatives and that the institutional architecture draws them towards political engagement but at the same time imposes constraints. The political friction that this creates has contributed to the anger that has characterised the movement. While the Tea Party movement may, as such, have only an ephemeral existence, independent conservatives are likely to remain a significant and potent constituency and will, within the institutional structures that define the American political process, give rise to other movements and protests.     

Tea Party support and perceptions of local economic conditions

Researchers have long studied the underpinnings of voter perceptions of national economic conditions. Of growing interest though, is the effect of local economic evaluations on approval and voting behavior. Even though individuals engage more directly with the local economy than with that of the nation, perceptions of local conditions are colored as much by individual attitudes and demographics as by objective measures. Metropolitan area unemployment rates strongly predict local evaluations, but so do education, age, sex, and political attitudes. Of particular interest, even controlling for objective conditions, support for the Tea Party strongly predicts more negative evaluations and overpowers most other sources of bias.     

保障党员权利:党的先进性建设的基础工程

党员权利主要是政治权利、民主权利和工作权利,保障党员权利就是保障党组织的凝聚力和生命力。推进这项工程,要从党的先进性建设的高度,充分认识保障党员权利的必要性、重要性和紧迫性;要认真落实《党员权利保障条例》的各项规定和要求,在进一步加大政治体制改革力度的实践进程中着力搞好党内相关制度的改革和完善。     

新世纪的西欧右翼政党

新世纪以来,为研究“共产党的执政规律”,有关政党问题的论著相继问世,其中不少论著涉及西欧政党问题。但能够既系统又简要且具学术性地反映出政党发源地——西欧国家冷战后政党基本状况的论著并不多见。本组笔谈力图达到这个目的。     

Blame,Responsibility, and the Tea Party in the 2010 Midterm Elections

There is a general consensus both in the news media and scholarly research that 2010 was a highly nationalized election year. Reports have indicated that anti-Obama sentiment, the Democrats’ legislative agenda, the economy, and the Tea Party were all factors contributing to Democratic losses in the congressional elections. In this paper, we use data from 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to examine the individual-level dynamics that contributed to the heightened nationalization of the 2010 congressional elections. Our analysis shows that Tea Party support and the attribution of blame and responsibility by voters are essential to understanding the 2010 election outcome, beyond what we would expect from a simple referendum model of midterm elections. Not surprisingly, Tea Party supporters blamed Democrats for the state of national affairs, disapproved of the Democrats’ policy agenda, and overwhelmingly supported Republican candidates in the congressional elections. However, our analysis shows that not all voters who supported Republican candidates were driven by high levels of opposition to President Obama and the Democrats. Another key group of voters blamed both Democrats and Republicans for the nation’s problems but ultimately held Democrats responsible in the voting booth by supporting Republican congressional candidates.     

Fortuyn versus Wilders: An Agency-Based Approach to Radical Right Party Building

This article presents an agency-based approach to the success of radical right-wing populist parties. It posits that radical right parties will only experience sustained electoral success when they are built prior to their electoral breakthrough and when they institutionalise rapidly. The process of institutionalisation will progress more quickly when radical right parties have a leader with strong internal leadership qualities and when sufficient attention is paid to the recruitment, training and socialisation of candidates. The argument is illustrated through a comparison between two Dutch radical right parties: the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) and the Partij Voor de Vrijheid (PVV). The two cases offer a compelling example of learning effects in politics: Geert Wilders (PVV) observed the collapse of the LPF and has avoided making the same mistakes.     

科学发展观是党和国家解放思想的必然选择

科学发展观与党的思想路线是密切相关的，是党和国家解放思想的必然选择。科学发展观集中体现了马克思主义关于发展的世界观和方法论。是党的中央领导集体解放思想的必然，它不仅促进了党和国家不断解放思想，而且通过党和国家思想的不断解放．推进了党和国家的事业进入了科学发展的轨道。     

发展党内民主是构建党内和谐的重要途径

发展党内民主是党内和谐的前提和基础,也是构建党内和谐的重要途径。而发展党内民主,关键在于切实落实党员的民主权利。     

The Parliamentary Party

The Conservative parliamentary party will fulfill three important functions for any incoming Conservative government: it will be the focus of attention for the national media; it will be the bulk vote that will deliver its legislative programme; it will form the talent pool from which members of any incoming government will be recruited. A majority Conservative government could see a majority of its MPs newly elected, with more Conservative women and ethnic minority MPs than ever before (although there will be little change in the socio-economic background of their MPs). These new MPs will present problems in terms of party management, although they will be less likely to rebel than longer-serving MPs. There are also relatively few signs of discontent among incumbent Conservative MPs (the article identifies the most rebellious Conservative MPs). Any new Conservative government will also have to deal with a reformed House of Lords, in which it will no longer have a majority.     

From McCarthyism to the Tea Party: Interpreting Anti-Leftist Forms of US Populism in Comparative Perspective

This article presents an analysis of McCarthyite and Tea Party political discourse and explores the possibilities of utilizing populism as an analytic construct for making comparisons between the political and economic projects envisaged by these two conservative movements. Relying on a definition of populism as a universal discursive formation, this article argues that there is a similar structure to the discourses of McCarthyism and the Tea Party, which relies on the construction of a “left-oriented enemy,” posed as a threat to the American values of freedom and independence historically tied to the nation's “founding moment.” With this comparative discursive structure established, the article then explores the ideological differences between the movements and attempts to interpret them within a historical framework. This article concludes by asserting that cases of populism in the immediate postwar period such as McCarthyism were short lived compared to new cases of populism such as the Tea Party, insofar as the universal discursive structure of populism, which once proved to be an exceptional phenomenon within modern forms of political rule, is now becoming part of the institutionalized structure of democratic politics, evidenced by a number of cases taken in comparative-historical perspective.     

牢牢把握正确方向 推动党校工作再上新台阶

做好新形势下的党校工作,就必须认真总结工作,弘扬优良传统,牢牢把握做好新形势下党校工作的正确方向;全面贯彻党的十七届四中全会精神,按照全国党校工作会议部署,紧紧围绕山西科学发展大局,努力推动我省党校工作再上新台阶。