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OVER THE PAST DECADE, CONSERVATIVES HAVE ACHIEVED SOMETHING CLOSE TO AN IDEOLOGICAL MONOPOLY ON ISSUES OF CRIME AND CRIME CONTROL. THE RIGHT HAS RIDDEN TO POLITICAL POWER ON GET-TOUGH PROPOSALS FOR DEALING WITH CRIMINALS. ITS SUCCESSES HAVE PERSUADED OTHERWISE LIBERAL POLITICIANS, SUCH AS MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR MICHAEL DUKAKIS, TO STRIKE A CONSERVATIVE STANCE ON CRIME. AS A RESULT OF CONSERVATIVE INITIATIVES-THE NATIONWIDE MOVE TOWARD HARSHER SENTENCING, FOR EXAMPLE--GOVERNMENT HAS EXPANDED ITS POWER TO CONTROL THE POPULATION. CRIME CONTROL HAS BECOME A TRYSTING POINT WHERE CORPORATIONS AND THE STATE ENGAGE IN AN INCREASINGLY INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP. THE LEFT HAS SAID VERY LITTLE ABOUT THESE DEVELOPMENTS. NOT ONLY HAS IT FAILED TO RESPOND ADEQUATELY TO THE RIGHT'S TAKEOVER OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE; IN MANY AREAS IT HAS FAILED EVEN TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES. ONE NEEDS UNDERSTAND WHY THE LEFT HAS BEEN SO WEAK. ONE ALSO NEED TO DISCUSS WAYS IN WHICH IT COULD DEVELOP A STRONGER VOICE IN CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL-JUSTICE POLICY.

Invitation to Democratic Left's 1997 Annual Delegate Conference. Registering information and Introduction by Party Leader Proinsias De Rossa TD.

Criticizes the journal's coverage of Irish affairs, both in terms of quantity and quality. Includes 2 responses to the changes.

"Left melodrama" is a form of contemporary political critique that combines thematic elements and narrative structures of the melodramatic genre with a political perspective grounded in a left theoretical tradition, fusing them to dramatically interrogate oppressive social structures and unequal relations of power. It is also a new form of what Walter Benjamin called "left melancholy", a critique that deadens what it examines by employing outdated and insufficient analyses to current exploitations. Left melodrama is melancholic insofar as its use of older leftist critical methods disavows its attachments to the failed promises of left political-theoretical critique: that it could provide direct means to freedom and moral Tightness. Left melodrama is melodramatic insofar as it incorporates the specific melodramatic narrative, style and promise of the text that stands in for its disavowed attachments: the Manifesto of the Communist Party. Whereas the Manifesto's critical power promised radical political transformation, left melodrama incorporates the Manifesto's melodramatic style in an effort to revivify that promise. It thus inhibits the creation of new critical methods appropriate to our current historical moment and occludes Marx and Engels' warning that the possibility of radical transformation is diminished when the past furnishes the vision for the future. Left melodrama can be found in the texts of Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri; their reincorporation of the Manifesto's melodrama both contributes to their widespread success and undercuts their critical capacities to examine and challenge the inequalities, injustices and unfreedom that shape the present moment. Adapted from the source document.

A series of presidential elections in Latin America has brought to power new political leaders with a left-of-centre political orientation &, in some cases, strong anti-market & anti-Washington rhetoric. Many commentators have viewed this as a sort of regional left turn. When countries are embracing market friendly policies, competitiveness & globalisation virtually all over the world, is there a risk that the region is going back to the future, embarking on old fashioned economic measures? Adapted from the source document.

Re : generations -- Generation left (behind) -- Generation explosion -- The electoral turn -- Reinventing adulthood.

A key terrain of political controversy remains the concept of multiculturalism. Here, Eriksen and Stjernfelt critically examine its impact, both in Malaysia and in Europe, in The Democratic Contradictions of Multiculturalism, published by Telos Press in 2012. Part of their argument involved an examination of a specifically leftist variant. Their rebuttal, challenging the left to face up to its own Jacobin legacies: given the checkered history of more than two centuries of leftism, there is no reason not to see multicultis on the left as the current heirs of a strong and immanent tradition within the left, going all the way back to Robespierre's populism and anti-individualism. The tendency on the left to identify, if not reduce, individuals to simplistic collective categories, such as class, economic position, culture, and ethnicity, has simply been there all the time, and it has been able to merge seamlessly, in different combinations, with other classical leftist ideas such as substantial equality, paternalism, anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism, anti-bourgeois lifestyle recommendations, etc. In other words, multiculturalism is definitively a left-wing phenomenon, when it inherits the worst of the left tradition. The current return to politics will therefore have to address a legacy of repressive behavior, or else it will repeat it. Adapted from the source document.

As Mexico approaches the 2006 elections, the candidate for president closest to the left is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, supported by the Partido de la Revolución Democrática and other left and center organizations. All the polls place him well ahead of the candidates of the other two parties, presenting a unique possibility of a pendulum swing of Mexican politics to the left of center.

(For Part I, see SA 35:1/87R2000.) A discussion of the process of redefinition of the framework in which the Western Left could operate in the 1970s & an analysis of the resulting new Western Left, presented in the broader context of the total Western political constellation. The indifference of the Western Left toward a potential or actual Eastern partner is analyzed, & the Eastern situation is assessed. Perspectives for a dialogue between the Western & Eastern Left are discussed & obstacles to such a dialogue are defined. The republican dimension of leftist tradition could provide an underlying basis for this dialogue. F. Rasmussen

A commentary on the current crisis in & future of leftist politics, with particular reference to the decline of socialist states in the former Warsaw Pact & the USSR. The future of the Left in Western societies is discussed, emphasizing the contradictory nature of the Left's attempt to examine its own history & re-invent itself. The results of the attempt to devise a New Left thematically opposed to what the Left had historically represented are noted. Two future pathways of socialism are emphasized: the struggle for a social economy to supplant the economy of profit, & the democratic organization of social institutions. It is concluded that socialism persists because it continues to stand in contradiction to current processes of globally mobile capital. 33 References. Adapted from the source document.