Suchergebnisse

Ten years after the Liberation, the French Communist Party remains the strongest party in France. It can muster a quarter of the nation's votes and claim more "militants" than all other French parties put together. A majority of industrial workers continue to vote for the "party of the working class" even if they are reluctant to strike on its behalf. This persistent strength is both disturbing and puzzling. It is obviously a major source of weakness not only for French democracy, but for the effectiveness of the Western coalition. There is no simple explanation of the continued hold of Communism, since it is both the cause and the consequence of the many-faceted crisis of French society.

The 'Keynesian social-democratic' consensus, which prevailed for most of the postwar period, broke down under the Labour Government of 1974-79. Today's political agenda is the product of the victorious neoliberals' interpretation of the crises of 10 years ago. Mrs Thatcher and her colleagues still have the political initiative because no one has yet mounted a successful challenge to that interpretation. Aims to point the way towards a possible alternative, and to explore some of its implications. (DCL)

Recently, a group of conservative policy intellectuals and writers captured the attention of the media and even of a few Republican politicians. These "reformocons," including Ross Douthat of the New York Times, Ramesh Ponnuru of the National Review, and Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, believe it is time for the Republican Party to propose public policy solutions to domestic issues like health care and education, rather than provoke the cultural resentments of the party base, what Douthat has called the politics of "white identity."