Телеграм канал «Политическая теория и философия (Political theory and philosophy)»

Social Democracy After the Cold War

Despite the market triumphalism that greeted the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet empire seemed initially to herald new possibilities for social democracy. In the 1990s, with a new era of peace and economic prosperity apparently imminent, people discontented with the realities of global capitalism swept social democrats into power in many Western countries. The resurgence was, however, brief. Neither the recurring economic crises of the 2000s nor the ongoing War on Terror was conducive to social democracy, which soon gave way to a prolonged decline in countries where social democrats had once held power. Arguing that neither globalization nor demographic change was key to the failure of social democracy, the contributors to this volume analyze the rise and decline of Third Way social democracy and seek to lay the groundwork for the reformulation of progressive class politics.

Offering a comparative look at social democratic experience since the Cold War, the volume examines countries where social democracy has long been an influential political force Sweden, Germany, Britain, and Australia while also considering the history of Canada’s NDP and the emergence of New Left parties in Germany and the province of Québec. The case studies point to a social democracy that has confirmed its rupture with the postwar order and its role as the primary political representative of working-class interests. Once marked by redistributive and egalitarian policy perspectives, social democracy has, the book argues, assumed a new role that of a modernizing force advancing the neoliberal cause.

Tom Overton - John Berger: From Life
 
John Berger (1926–2017) served in Britain’s wartime army before attending art school. The young artist became a critic and broadcaster, cutting a swathe through the staid world of post-war Britain, demanding political engagement in all things. In 1972, he came to prominence with Ways of Seeing, a TV series and book that inspired generations to look more closely and think more deeply about art. Committed to the passionate exploration of life in all its forms, unbounded by convention, he applied himself to a panoply of genres, media, and subjects. His career defies definition. His work reimagined the relationship between art and society; human and animal; living and dead. He charted the disappearance of peasants from the world; documented migrant labour; explored the AIDS crisis; and was trenchantly opposed to the new world order that emerged in the 1990s, as he was to the War on Terror that followed. Berger was deeply and vocally committed to the Palestinian cause. Through working on Berger’s archive at the British Library and fifteen years of getting to know his family, friends, lovers, and collaborators, Tom Overton has produced a portrait of an artist and storyteller who defined and transcended his times.

Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl - Inventing the Global Competitiveness Race: The World Economic Forum, the IMD and the Neoliberal Benchmarking Tool They Created

This article offers a historical analysis of the World Competitiveness Index, which the World Economic Forum (WEF) developed after 1979 and continued to produce for four decades, partly in collaboration with the International Institute for Management Development. It examines the conceptualisation of this global performance indicator (GPI), the institutional and methodological choices that were made and the underlying neoliberal theoretical views on which it was based. A case study on the use of the competitiveness indicator in the context of the newly established European Union at the beginning of the 1990s helps to show how business groups (the European Round Table of Industrialists and the Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe) relied on this quantification of competitiveness to make policy recommendations that mirrored their economic interests. Competitiveness was used as a performative notion to support policies that came of the toolbox of neoliberalism, above all the deregulation of the labour market. Finally, the contestation of the WEF’s flagship indicator by leading economists is discussed. Overall, the article contributes to existing research on the increasing use of GPIs by allowing for a better understanding of the role played by business actors in producing and circulating neoliberal indicators and by calling attention to their implications regarding lacking democratic oversight making them vulnerable to attempts of corruption.