Synopses & Reviews
In the election campaign of 2000, Al Gore and Ralph Nader polled many millions more votes than George W. Bush. Yet the US Left lost out, a casualty of the two-party system. This is a pattern which has been repeated many times over the years. The most contentious issues dividing the Left in the United States have been those related to the Democratic Party. This book explores the crucial moments in US history where the stranglehold of the two-party system was nearly broken. Presenting a detailed history of Labor party politics, beginning with Henry George's campaign for mayor of New York City in 1886, proceeding to Robert La Follette's independent presidential campaign of 1924, and the Socialist party's relationship to New York's American Labor Party in the early twentieth century, Eric Chester explores the history of Left in America up to and including the Nader campaign of 2000.Chester identifies key reasons why burgeoning political movements have failed. He examines the part played by trade union-based political parties. He also looks at the inabililty of populist middle-class parties to establish ideological or organisational groundings for a viable third party. Looking to the future, Chester proposes an alternative: drawing on the success of the Socialist Party at the turn of the last century, he lays out ideas for a mass-based socialist party as the only way forward towards genuinely independent politics.
Synopsis
History of Left politics in the US, from 19th-century Labor and Socialist parties to the 2000 Nader campaign.
Synopsis
Leading scholars discuss ideology and hotly contested post-structuralist theory.
About the Author
Sinisa Malesevic is lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Sociology, NUI, Galway. He is author of Ideology, Legitimacy and the New State (Frank Cass, 2002), editor of Culture in Central and Eastern Europe: Institutional and Value Changes (IMO, 1997) and co-editor of Ideology after Poststructuralism (Pluto 2002)._x000B_Iain MacKenzie is a Lecturer in Politics at The Queen's University of Belfast. He is author of articles on Deleuze and Guattari and co-author of Contemporary Social and Political Theory: An Introduction (OUP, 1999).
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Engels and the Henry George Campaign of 1886:
'Historic' Development or Blind Alley
The Political Party of the Working Class:
The Socialist Party and the Labor Party Question
The Conference for Progressive Political Action:
Labor Party or Pressure Group
The Octogenarian Snail: The La Follette Campaign of 1924
The Labor Party in the 1930s:
Trotsky, Thomas and La Guardia
Labor Party or Green Party:
The Nader Campaign of 2000
Conclusions:
The Socialist Alternative
Bi