The rise and fall of New Labour
3 June 2010 _ Anthony Giddens
The era of Labour hegemony is over. How should we assess its legacy? It is conventional these days to disparage the record of Labour in government over the past thirteen years. Even quite supportive observers tend to argue that little of substance has been achieved. For the more swingeing critics, Labour in power - Labour as New Labour - has been more than a disappointment, it has been a disaster. The party led an onslaught on civil liberties, betrayed leftist ideals, failed to make any impact on inequality and, worst of all, embarked upon a calamitous war in Iraq. mehr
Progress in an age of fear?
14 May 2010 _ Tobias Dürr
On October 19th 2009 Tony Judt gave a speech at New York University in which focused on the history and the future perspective of a "Social Democracy of Fear”. His essay was published in the New York Review of Books. In addition, Judt published his book "Ill fares the land”. Based on both publications, the Wiardi Beckman Foundation, a Dutch Think Tank associated with the Dutch Labour Party PvDA, started an online debate. mehr
Dangerous liaisons! Niebuhrians and Neocons
10 August 2009 _ Therese Feiler
Our involvement in the Afghanistan War is inextricably intertwined with that of the United States, whether through a pacta sunt servanda imperative or acceptance of a certain political mindset.* To understand this mindset, we need to poke around a little in recent American intellectual history. Much ink has been spilt on how the Bush era was determined by neoconservatism, but what about Obama’s intellectual background? mehr
Iranian Elections: What did the Iranians vote for?
18 July 2009 _ Nora Mokdad
Iran has decided not to change. Not to change its president neither its political discourse. Iran has decided to wait for the next American offer before it freely compromises, because it is still convinced that it has not lost any of its battles in the last four years, especially those concerning the nuclear issue. mehr
Waves of Mutilation
16 June 2009 _ Ross McKibbin
Unless the opinion polls are very misleading Gordon Brown’s government seems electorally finished: undermined both by longer-term policy failures and, increasingly, by the short-term embarrassments to which terminally ill governments are subject. What went wrong is an important question, not only to the Labour Party itself but to European social democracy generally, since it was Labour which carried ‘third way’ politics furthest and fastest. mehr