Where Do We Go from Here?

The left needs a fundamental rethinking of its politics for a new era. The first task is to understand the contemporary conjuncture: the dynamic combination of events and circumstances which structure a political settlement. Two such conjunctures have occurred in recent history. The first produced the postwar welfare settlement of 1945, which broke down in the economic crisis of the 1970s. The second took shape in the 1980s around the revival of liberal market economics and what became known as Thatcherism. It failed following the 2008 financial crash, and has begun to break apart with the vote to leave the EU. New political and cultural faultlines are confounding the orthodoxies of the governing class and cutting across the partisan loyalties of the main political parties. They herald the renewal of politics. But Labour is on the edge of an abyss. This article considers what the left can learn from Labour's previous periods of defeat and revisionism, and suggests where—if it survives—it should go next.     

Progressivism in British Politics: Some Revisionist Themes

This article argues that a return to the history of progressive political thought can help us to think afresh about what a renewed centre‐left politics might look like today. The article identifies some significant aspects of this history that attracted little attention in earlier debates over the British progressive tradition—in particular, debates about social ownership, nationalism and distributism. This revisionist history of British progressivism points the way towards some common ideological ground that could provide a starting point for a new dialogue between different ‘progressive’ political parties and interests.     

E. P. Thompson: Last of the English Radicals?

Historian, activist and campaigner Edward Thompson is seen as an exemplar of an English radicalism which some see as a lineage with which the contemporary Labour party might fruitfully reconnect. This article examines how Thompson himself understood and characterised the ‘English radical idiom’ and traces his use and then abandonment of this idea in the middle years of his career. It offers some wider reflections about what the insights and lessons associated with his historical writings and reflections on the distinctive nature of English cultural and social thought.     

Stepping in the same river twice: Stability amidst change in Eastern European party competition

Party competition in Eastern Europe faces a seeming paradox. On the one hand, research finds increased political volatility in these countries, while, on the other, some authors demonstrate inherent ideological stability in the region. This research note presents a new methodological approach to adjudicating between these two findings, and suggests that while political organisations come and go, the ideological structure of party competition in Eastern Europe is strikingly steady. By developing a number of different measures of the dimensional structure of party competition, the consistency of the measures across countries, as well as their relative stability within countries over time, is demonstrated. The findings speak to current developments in Eastern Europe, and have implications beyond the region. The conclusion that even volatile party systems can be underpinned by stable ideological oppositions points to two different types of party system structure: one related to parties as organisations, and the other related to parties as expressions of political divides.     

Foreign threat and political party change: Russia and changes in party manifestos

How do political parties react to foreign security threats? There has been very little attention paid in the literature generally to how parties react to international events, particularly how parties react to foreign policy threats. Using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project, we examine how political parties in countries in Europe have reacted to Russian actions in terms of their emphasis on security issues. Based upon our analysis of the manifestoes from 331 parties in 36 countries we find that, generally, interstate threats have no significant effect on the military position adopted by political parties, although these effects vary by party type and by the type of threat. Russian based threats appear to be associated with the Far Left becoming more dovish (which is consistent with what would be expected by the literature) and the Far Right becoming significantly less hawkish.     

Incumbency,internal processes and renomination in Indian parties

This paper analyses a critical aspect of the internal functioning of five major Indian political parties, namely the nomination of candidates for parliamentary elections, focusing on the pattern of renomination of former candidates and incumbents. The data are analysed against the literature on the structure and functioning of Indian parties, and interview material on the process of nomination in the 2009 and 2004 elections. From the perspective of a six-fold typology of centralisation of nomination processes drawn from the comparative literature, it is found that all the parties analysed are in either the second-most centralised, or even most centralised categories, and that for the three major national parties, Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist Party of India (Marxist), past performance plays a role in nominations, the majority of incumbents being renominated in the post-1989 period.     

中国共产党执政的社会基础拓展要素分析

拥有广泛而强大的社会基础是中国共产党完成执政使命的依靠力量,是党实现长期执政的重要前提。变动的社会背景下中国共产党要促进执政目标的达成,就必须努力赢得最广大民众的情感支撑和执政认同,持续不断地拓展和扩大社会基础。而其中的影响或制约要素包涵了多个层级和维度,它们共同交织在一起,纳入到现代政党政治运作的指标体系当中。深入分析和研究这些要素,对于中国共产党有效实现社会整合、重塑政治权威意义巨大。     

“三型”马克思主义执政党:开拓党的建设新境界

党的十八大报告中首次提出"建设学习型、服务型、创新型的马克思主义执政党",而且将这个党的建设总目标写入了新修改的党章。从党的建设总目标的历史探索轨迹和党的建设总布局的形成发展轨迹看,从对执政党建设的理论意义和现实意义看,要把中国共产党建设成为学习型、服务型、创新型的马克思主义执政党确实是一项全新的重大课题。"学习型、服务型、创新型"既是一个系统的价值整体,同时,在这个系统中,又必须凸显全心全意为人民服务的根本宗旨,紧紧围绕改进服务方式、提高服务质量来加强学习、开拓创新,惟其如此,才能真正体现马克思主义执政党作为实现、维护和发展人民群众利益的工具的本质。     

党建价值目标的伦理建构

党建价值目标的伦理建构，要体现以人为本的核心立场，把促进人的全面发展，实现好、维护好、发展好最广大人民的根本利益作为党的建设的出发点和落脚点。基于党的建设实践路径，应把观念创新作为党建价值目标伦理建构的先导工程，从人民利益出发，在“民生”与“民富”、“民智”与“民强”、“民安”与“民享”协调发展中，彰显党的执政品格，体现党推进发展的根本目的。     

我国公益诉讼主体之界定——兼论公益诉讼当事人适格之扩张

此次民事诉讼法修改对公益诉讼制度的规定,是对传统的当事人适格理论和制度的重大突破。新民事诉讼法确认非实体利害关系人具有作为公共利益提起民事诉讼的主体资格,但并未明确规定哪些机关和组织可以作为公益诉讼的主体,这有可能增大公益诉讼实际运作的难度。因此,明确公益诉讼启动主体就成为构建并运行该制度亟待解决的问题。诉讼信托的确立是公益诉讼当事人适格之扩张的适当出路之一。