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Based on in-depth interviews with seventy-four intellectuals of the lefts in Cuba and Mexico, Reinventing Revolution explores the rapidly changing thinking of progressives on the big-and enduring-questions of democracy, economic alternatives, and national sovereignty. Offering a unique world-systems perspective on the sociology of intellectuals and

Combining political history, philosophical interpretation and story-telling, Steger traces ideology's remarkable journey from de Tracy's Enlightenment 'science of ideas' to George W. Bush's 'imperial globalism'. He finds in '-isms' an ability to articulate deep-seated understandings of community in global rather than national terms.

Emotions are prevalent in the rhetoric of populist politicians and among their electorate. We argue that partially dissimilar emotional processes may be driving right- and left-wing populism. Existing research has associated populism with fear and insecurities experienced in contemporary societies on the one hand, and with anger, resentment, and hatred on the other. Yet, there are significant differences in the targets of right- and left-wing resentment: a political and economic establishment deemed responsible for austerity politics (left), and political and cultural elites accused of favoring ethnic, religious, and sexual outgroups at the expense of the neglected ingroup (right). Referring to partially different emotional opportunity structures and distinct political strategies at exploiting these structures, we suggest that right-wing populism is characterized by repressed shame that transforms fear and insecurity into anger, resentment, and hatred against perceived "enemies" of the precarious self. Left-wing populism, in turn, associates more with acknowledged shame that allows individuals to self-identify as aggrieved and humiliated by neoliberal policies and their advocates. The latter type of shame holds emancipatory potential as it allows individuals to establish bonds with others who feel the same, whereas repressors remain in their shame or seek bonds from repression-mediated defensive anger and hatred. ; Peer reviewed

The origins and immediate vitality of the left/right divide which emerged in French revolutionary politics from 1789 can only be understood against the background of a much older classification dynamic based on the primacy of the right hand, first described by Robert Hertz in 1909. This dynamic infused political thinking first in Versailles and since 1815 in democracies throughout the world. In the process, the classical left/right polarity acquired a new dimension: the complementary notions of 'accepting' and 'questioning' the existing social order. An essential feature of both the age-old classical polarity and the ensuing political polarity is that they are intimately bound up with local and evolving social contexts: there is no single content-based definition of left and right. As long as the majority of us are predisposed to use our right hand when acting in the world, 'left versus right' will remain the most important political antithesis in western-type democracies.

The origins and immediate vitality of the left/right divide which emerged in French revolutionary politics from 1789 can only be understood against the background of a much older classification dynamic based on the primacy of the right hand, first described by Robert Hertz in 1909. This dynamic infused political thinking first in Versailles and since 1815 in democracies throughout the world. In the process, the classical left/right polarity acquired a new dimension: the complementary notions of 'accepting' and 'questioning' the existing social order. An essential feature of both the age-old classical polarity and the ensuing political polarity is that they are intimately bound up with local and evolving social contexts: there is no single content-based definition of left and right. As long as the majority of us are predisposed to use our right hand when acting in the world, 'left versus right' will remain the most important political antithesis in western-type democracies. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion