Dan Keith

Pulling together in a crisis? Anarchism, feminism and the limits of left-wing convergence in austerity Britain

In this article, we examine three key, recently emergent sites of anti-austerity activism in Britain – Left Unity, the People’s Assembly and Occupy – in order to explore to what extent and in which ways the traditional British left is in the process of reconfiguring itself. More specifically, we explore the ‘points of contact’ being developed, or not, amongst feminist, anarchist and Marxist/socialist activists. We argue that if we are seeing a mutation of the left at present, it concerns a noticeable (if partial and contested) ‘feminist turn’ in terms of the composition, ideas and practices of these sites.

Towards an Analytical Framework for Party Mergers: Operationalising the Cases of the German Left Party and the Dutch Green Left

The theoretical literature on party mergers is thin. This article draws upon organisational behaviour research to create an analytical framework that is suitable for explaining the processes inherent in party mergers. The authors operationalise this framework by examining two cases of party merger: in Germany, between the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) in 2006/07, and in the Netherlands, between four small parties to form Groenlinks (Green Left) in 1989–91. They conclude that the two cases demonstrate definable steps and processes that are inherent to mergers, and they welcome further applications of this framework in other settings.

The Survival and Termination of Party Mergers in Europe

Why do constituent parties that participated in a party merger that was intended to be permanent decide to leave the merger to re-enter party competition separately? To address this question, merger termination is conceptualised in this article as an instance of new party formation, coalition termination and institutionalisation failure. Building on this conceptualisation, three sets of factors are presented that account for which mergers are likely to be terminated by constituent parties and which are not. To test these three sets of hypotheses, a mixed-methods design is used. First, survival analysis is applied to a new dataset on the performance of mergers in 21 European democracies during the postwar period. The findings support hypotheses derived from a conception of merger termination as new party formation: pre- and post-merger legislative performance significantly affect the probability of merger termination. Furthermore, the institutionalisation of constituent parties helps to sustain mergers if the latter already built trust in pre-merger cooperation, in line with the conception of merger termination as institutionalisation failure. Two theory-confirming case studies are then analysed: one case of merger survival and the other of termination. These case studies substantiate the working of the significant variables identified in the large-N analysis that drove the selection of case studies. They also reveal how mediating factors difficult to capture in large-N designs help to account for why factors that – theoretically – should have complicated the working of the ‘survival case’, and should have been beneficial to the ‘termination case’, did not generate the expected effects.

Nonmainstream left parties and women’s representation in Western Europe:

Ideology is one of the most relevant variables in explaining the level of women’s representation attained by political parties. While left-wing parties are typically the best performers, extant research has tended to overlook the diversity of the left block and predominantly focused on mainstream left-wing political parties, namely the Social Democrats. Yet, the Left also includes both Green parties and radical left parties. This article analyzes the differences that exist within this largely heterogeneous group of parties across Western Europe. In particular, it explores how the diverse ideological background of radical left and Green parties leads to varied ways of engaging with feminism, diverse forms of organizing women within their ranks as well as dissimilar positions toward gender quotas. These shape different levels of women’s numerical representation in public office and in party decision-making positions. Generally, we find that ideology is a greater determinant of representation than geographical region. Our findings also show a significant convergence among distinct party subgroups in terms of their share of elected women in both party and public office.

Ready to Get Their Hands Dirty: The Socialist Party and GroenLinks in the Netherlands

The Netherlands is one of the few western European countries where a left party has not recently entered national government.1 This last happened when the small Christian-environmentalist Political Party of the Radicals (PPR) played a junior role in a progressive coalition in the 1970s. The absence of left parties from government is not for want of trying. Indeed, two left parties – GroenLinks (GL) and the Socialistische Partij (SP) – have made hard choices with the aim of doing this, sacrificing policy commitments in pursuit of electoral and office goals, and the prospect of these parties entering government is no longer a flight of fancy. GroenLinks and the SP have increasing experience of local government and are now taken seriously in discussions on prospective coalitions. However, electoral successes such as that by the SP in 2006, when its representation in the Tweede Kamer grew from nine to 25 seats, have not, as yet, brought government participation with them.

Jeremy Corbyn and the Limits of Authentic Rhetoric

The New Labour project shifted the party’s rhetoric firmly to the centre ground, relegating older left-wing rhetoric to political fringes. Yet having symbolized everything that was wrong with Labour for the Blairite modernizers, this ‘old’ rhetoric bounced back. Jeremy Corbyn’s remarkable 2015 leadership campaign re-energised language and ideas thought to have been expunged from Labour’s lexicon, shifting the party’s priorities to social movement-building and away from parliamentary activity. This chapter explores the role of the ‘authentic’ political outsider, utilizing the classical rhetorical approach of ethos, pathos, and logos. It shows that Corbyn revived a strand of campaigning and grassroots rhetoric that proved surprisingly resilient, rebooting seemingly moribund ideas. However, authenticity has its limitations when rhetoric fails to present a credible pathway to power.

Book Review: Lubomír Kopeček, ed., Trajectories of the Left: Social Democratic and (ex-) Communist Parties in Contemporary Europe: Between Past and Future. Institute for Comparative Political Research (ISPO), Masaryk University, Brno, 2005 (pbk), 179 pp. ISBN 80 7325 078 0

States, although Archer is unwilling to concede that this is a sufficient explanation of why it led away from sustaining an independent labour party. Archer minimizes the expected effects of beliefs in individualism and liberalism on party formation in the United States to find a greater impact from religion and its ties with existing parties. Part of this impact came from the strength of nativism and anti-Catholic prejudice. But Archer attributes even more importance to union leaders’ fears that the strong link between religion and partisanship would make it futile to attempt breaking with existing loyalties. Similarly, socialism had its greatest impact on union leaders’ fears of sectarian conflict. Archer has given us a well-documented look at United States politics and society through the prism of comparison with Australia. The result diminishes the importance previously given to political institutions, racial and ethnic divisions and values. Greatest weight is put on more proximate factors within the union movement, its treatment by the state and the beliefs and values most closely associated with its membership and supporters. Even if not everyone will be willing to discard earlier explanations, everyone will benefit from examining this argument.