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A Tale of Two Nationalisms
As tensions are ratcheted up across the Taiwan Strait, Wang Chaohua analyses the distinctive trajectory of national consciousness on the island. Contradictions of identity, as the legacies of KMT and Cold War confront local particularities and democratic impulses, and possibilities for an exit from the impasses of geography and history.
The Social and Political Economy of Global Turbulence
In a landmark engagement with Robert Brenner’s account of the long downturn of the world economy since the 70s, Giovanni Arrighi lays out a social and political economy of the roles of labour unrest, national liberation and corporate financialization in the crisis of the post-war order, and the prospects for a militarized US hegemony today.
Late Nationalism: The Case of Quebec
The developed world has its own national movements, encased within Spain, the UK and Canada, which have set out to gain the classical objective of independence. How far is their timing likely to affect their trajectory? Kevin Pask considers the example of a postmodern Quebec.
Origins of the Present Crisis
Postmodernism is typically seen as a recent sequel to modernism. T. J. Clark queries Perry Anderson’s account of the break between them, and concludes that there is more continuity of conditions than meets the eye. It may be too soon to judge whether modernism has passed.
Chile, A Quarter of a Century on
“A quarter of a century has passed since the Chilean President Salvador Allende was overthrown and died a violent death, while still remaining loyal to his people and his country to the end. A us-supported military coup put an end to the revolutionary period that crowned a . . .” read more
The Grand Hotel Abyss
“A considerable part of the leading German intelligentsia, including Adorno, have taken up residence in the ‘Grand Hotel Abyss. . . a beautiful hotel, equipped with every comfort. . . And the daily contemplation of the abyss, between excellent meals or artistic entertainments, can only heighten the enjoyment . . .” read more
Social Theory Put to the Test of Practice: Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens
“The 1990s have presented a particularly contradictory aspect to social theorists. On the one hand, the ideological climate was dominated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its East European extensions. While the most widely noticed intellectual trends took different forms—for example, Fukuyama’s announcement of the End . . .” read more
Nationalism and the Case of Ireland
“The Enlightenment and its Romantic aftermath gave birth to two doctrines distinguished only by the letter s. The first was that people had the right to self-determination; the second was that peoples had such a right. The former belief is the keystone of modern democracy, and indeed . . .” read more
The New Collectivism: Pension Reform, Grey Capitalism and Complex Socialism
“With the advent of a Social Democrat-Green coalition in Germany, with socialists or social democrats in the governments of thirteen out of fifteen members of the eu and with Communists in the French and Italian Cabinets, the European Left faces an historic opportunity. The swing to the . . .” read more
America the Undemocratic
“The United States, as every American schoolchild knows, is the oldest and still greatest political democracy on earth. Non(Un?)-Americans may disagree, but on one point there is complete unanimity: the United States is different. Just how different can be gleaned from two seemingly innocuous statements by the man . . .” read more
Fin de Sociologie? The Dilemmas of Multidimensional Social Theory
“The discourse of sociology, though never at the heart of modern bourgeois culture, has always seemed pivotal to the critical self-understanding of modernity. Unlike the other major disciplines, sociology has presented itself simultaneously as a special science of structural patterns and as a totalizing search for social meaning. . . .” read more
Socialism by Any Other Name? Illusions and Renewal in the History of the Western European Left
“The 1990s are hard times for socialists. A dynamic capitalism is no longer much restrained by labour, or by the constraints imposed by socialism’s presence. Eric Hobsbawm, the most judicious of commentators from inside the socialist tradition, could only end his recent book, Age of Extremes, on a . . .” read more
Secularism and the State: Towards Clarity and Global Comparison
“Debates about the process of secularization have, in recent years, centred on the work of a group of sociologists and historians, mostly British, who have put forth and debated what is known as ‘the secularization thesis’. This correlates modernization with secularization, and generally measures secularization primarily through declining . . .” read more
Confronting Neoliberal Regimes: The Post-Marxist Embrace of Populism and Realipolitik
“The dominance of neoliberal policies in Anglo-American countries during the past two decades has not only had a profound impact on the character and programmes of major parties, but has also led to dramatic changes within the ranks of former Marxists and critical theorists. These former radicals now . . .” read more
The Siege of German Social Market
“The paradox of post-war European politics is that the most democratic economy in Europe, the German Social Market Economy, has underpinned the stability of continental currencies. The rights available to German workers and citizens both individually and collectively have been, and remain, amongst the most extensive of any . . .” read more
The Bourgeois Paradigm and Heritage Cinema
“Present disaffection with key institutions of the British state—the monarchy and the Palace of Westminster for instance—has brought about what Tom Nairn described recently as a transitional time, one in which ‘former subjects. . .have unintentionally half-mutated into citizens.’ He added that ‘in a society still unprogrammed for . . .” read more
Meaning What We Say: Feminist Ethics and the Critique of Humanism
“This article will consider a split within current feminist theory which appears to require some declaration of loyalties. The split I have in mind is not altogether easy to describe in terms of the standard academic classification of feminist positions that prevailed in the 1970s and early 1980s—the . . .” read more
Interpreting the New Left: Pitfalls and Opportunities
“Interpretation of the New Left raises a number of tricky historical and hermeneutical issues for the contemporary commentator. This current has always challenged conventional demarcations between intellectual matters and political life, and has experimented with different kinds of theoretical argument and political project. Accordingly, the New Left does . . .” read more
Reply to Dorothy Thompson and Fred Inglis
“What initially inspired me to study the British New Left was not just an awareness of the intellectual importance and political urgency of its legacy, but a curious attraction to its charismatic personalities. As a matter of fact, and understandably since he was personally involved, Gareth Stedman Jones . . .” read more
The Social Ownership of Capital
“Over the last twenty years a number of governments have sought to reconcile the competing claims of capital and labour by encouraging employees to acquire ownership of capital in lieu of wage or salary increases. In the post-Keynesian world of stagflation, this has often been a trade-off between . . .” read more
The Left’s Advance in Italy
“The Left’s victory in the Italian general election on the 21 April is likely to have a large impact on popular consciousness. It has revived a sense of collective hope and once more made concrete that fading but never totally obliterated belief that change is possible. This is . . .” read more
Misreading Gorz
“André Gorz’s work has been described as ‘pop sociology’, ‘journalistic impressionism’, and ‘sociological punditry’. He has been accused of both ‘bourgeois individualism’ and ‘backward-looking romanticism’. Depending on the critic, Gorz is an erstwhile ‘quasi-Stalinist’ or a reformed ‘anti-Stalinist’, an advocate of ‘postmodern politics’ or simply an ‘intellectual charlatan’. . . .” read more
Approaching Reality: Euro-Money and the Left
“What has happened to the once relatively democratic and humane national governments of Western Europe that they now contemplate the harshness in present circumstances of monetary union? Why is France, a society as socially unjust as Britain and with an ever higher unemployment rate contemplating putting yet more . . .” read more
Dialectics of Modernity: On Critical Theory and the Legacy of Twentieth-Century Marxism
“Students of parliamentary history are familiar with the idea of ‘Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’. Marxism, as a social-historical phenomenon, has been Her Modern Majesty’s Opposition to modernity. Always critical of and fighting against her predominant regimes, but never questioning the legitimate majesty of modernity and, when needed, explicitly . . .” read more
The Figures of Dissent
“Like many of the subscribers to this journal, I have bought it since it first came out. For many years, of course, the latest number has arrived in its tidy polythene wrapper through the post but, in 1960, just having left Cambridge and fired by David Holbrook and . . .” read more
Reviewing a Life. Fred Inglis’s Biography of Raymond Williams
“The publication of a first biography of Raymond Williams was bound to be a significant event for anyone touched by his work and yet now, in a period of immense uncertainty, doubtful of its enduring value and political resonance. Michel Foucault died of aids in 1984 and . . .” read more
Conditions of Our Existence: Ernest Gellner (1925-1995)
“It is impossible not to see a biographical element at work in Ernest Gellner’s insistence on the need for radical rethinking of our place in history. For his life made him rather like the ‘pure visitor’ whose detachment he recommended as a cognitive strategy. Both his parents were . . .” read more
Breakwaters of 2000: From Ethnic to Civic Nationalism
“A considerable part of world opinion has grown convinced that the end of history has led to a return of ethnic nationalism. The return is mainly a threat, and a permanent one in the sense that few can see any general cure for the fragmentation or anarchy now . . .” read more
The Crisis of Conservatism
“The Conservative Party has always been one of the great certainties of British politics. It has been so dominant throughout the twentieth century that some observers have begun to speak of this period as the ‘Conservative Century’. Between 1945 and 1995, the Conservatives formed majority governments for thirty-two . . .” read more
Financial Structures and Egalitarian Economic Policy
“In various incarnations, egalitarianism has been a fundamental concern of economic policy for most of the twentieth century. The egalitarian impulse—and its corollary, opposition to the stark inequalities of free market capitalism—was embodied in both Soviet-style socialism and social-democratic Keynesianism as they developed, primarily in the first quarter-century . . .” read more
Neo-Liberal Theory and Practice for Eastern Europe
“Eastern Europe’s market for policy ideas, suddenly opened in 1989, was swiftly captured by an Anglo-American product with a liberal brand name. This policy equivalent of fast food erected barriers to other new entrants and established a virtual monopoly on advice in most target states in the region. . . .” read more