Organized for Democracy? Left Challenges Inside the Democratic Party (original) (raw)
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Cedric de Leon's interest lies in a reconstruction of the sociology of democratic party politics. Thus, he aims to ‘include the diversity of sociological approaches beyond the Columbia Model’ (p. 157). The starting point of his book is the observation of a paradox: even though political parties are important players in the history of modern politics and stand in a continuum with state and civil society, the literature on parties is ‘ill-equipped to grasp the complexity and dynamism of their subject’ (p. 2). While parties are too often portrayed as an immobile concrete block, dominant approaches in the field are voter-oriented and mostly isolated from those of the party-centred approaches (p. 4). Given this critique, it is interesting that de Leon then follows this criticized distinction with the structure of his book: The first part presents ‘voter-centred approaches’, the second part ‘party-centred approaches’. But first of all, de Leon traces this distinction of party-orientation and voter-orientation back to the 18th century and classic authors of party sociology like Edmund Burke and David Hume (pp. 4–5). He states that the ‘early American experience has numerous implications for us as we prepare to engage the rest of the book’ (p. 10), and that the ‘first debates’ would articulate a key question that is, ‘whether or not parties were a help or hindrance to free society’ (p. 11).
Labour, Liberalism, and the Democratic Party: A Vexed Alliance
Relations industrielles, 2000
This essay argues that the American trade union movement constitutes a social democratic bloc within the U.S. body politic, episodically successful in broadening the welfare state, expanding citizenship rights, and defending the standard of living of working class Americans, including those unlikely to be found on the union membership roll. But such political influence, which has also helped make organized labour a backbone of Democratic Party electoral mobilization, has rarely been of usefulness when the unions sought to enhance their own institutional vibrancy, their own capacity to organize new members. When demands of this sort are put forward, Republican presidents and politicians denounce them outright, while most Democrats, including virtually every postwar president from that party, see such legislation as but the product of an unpopular interest group and thus safely devalued and ignored. American unions have almost always failed to win legislation advancing their instituti...
New Political Science
By the late 1960s, the Democratic Party had fallen into crisis. Vietnam, urban riots, and declining electoral fortunes marked a crossroads in the history of the party, raising questions about the meaning and trajectory of postwar liberalism. Amid the political chaos and economic crisis of the 1970s, a distinct political tendency running through the civil rights, feminist, labor, and antiwar movements demanded a new politics. The New Politics movement attempted to reform and realign the Democratic Party to the left. Reformers perceived party rules and structure as constraining progressives’ influence on public policy. Their project to democratize the Democratic Party began in the wake of the 1968 party crisis, and it ended ten years later with the failure to compel a sitting Democratic president and Democratic Congress to implement the party’s program for full employment. While faced with organized intraparty resistance, the failure of the New Politics movement hinged on the contradictory consequences of its struggle to open the party. The successes and failures of the New Politics movement suggest the limits and possibilities confronting progressive forces in the United States today. The New Politics episode can help clarify the goals and tactics involved in realigning American politics in a more progressive direction.
METAMORPHOSIS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY INTO A SOCIALIST POLITICAL ENTITY
The American Democratic Party, as it exists today, is a far cry from the democratic liberalism of John F. Kennedy in the 1960s. JFK was no ‘liberal’ by today’s standards. Rather, his was a Lockean philosophy founded on ideas of liberty and equality, combined with the principles of economic responsibility. The young president was an ardent proponent of stimulating the private sector and consumer demand through tax-cuts, and slashing tariffs and regulations that restricted free trade. The present Democratic Party, the institution of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Barack Obama, would consider JFK a minority-wing outsider at best. Clinton, who promises to continue the Obama legacy, would presumably add to the $20 trillion debt accumulated under the Obama administration. There are many analysts who argue that the politics of the Democratic Party are moving the United States to the radical left fringes. The Party of European Socialists drafted a Declaration of Principles on November 2011 summarizing their agenda. A comparison with the goals of European socialists and the statements and legislative initiatives of the Democratic Party are nearly identical.
History is not on the side of the US Democratic Party and not just because Republicans control all branches of government and dominate in legislatures in 32 states and governorships in 33 states. Just as there is not much of a centrist or leftist challenge to bourgeois political parties around the world, the rightwing trend of American politics seems unstoppable as it has been gaining momentum since the Reagan-Thatcher decade in the 1980s. The trend of conservative politics is not confined to the US, but it has become global largely because centrist parties, even those in Europe under the label Socialist have moved to the globalization, neoliberal and austerity camp.
Party and Society: Reconstructing a Sociology of Democratic Party Politics
2013
Political parties are central to democratic life, yet there is no standard definition to describe them or the role they occupy. 'Voter-centered' theoretical approaches suggest that parties are the mere recipients of voter interests and loyalties. 'Party-centered' approaches, by contrast, envision parties that polarize, democratize, or dominate society. In addition to offering isolated and competing notions of democratic politics, such approaches are also silent on the role of the state and are unable to account for organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the African National Congress, which exhibit characteristics of parties, states, and social movements simultaneously. In this timely book, Cedric de Leon examines the ways in which social scientists and other observers have imagined the relationship between parties and society. He introduces and critiques the full range of approaches, using enlivening comparative examples from across the globe. Cutting through a vast body of research, de Leon offers a succinct and lively analysis that outlines the key thinking in the field, placing it in historical and contemporary context. The resulting book will appeal to students of sociology, political science, social psychology, and related fields. Reviews This creative, well-organized, and well-written book is going to make important contributions to not only the analysis of parties but to the social sciences in general. Party & Society blends in-depth coverage of the field, criticism, and original argumentation. Students and experts fortunate enough to read this book will get a fuller sense of party politics than they ever had before. - Cihan Tuğal, University of California, Berkeley Offers a much-needed guide to the plethora of classical and contemporary perspectives on political parties in both sociology and political science. But it also adds up to an important argument: if sociologically minded students of parties wish to present a robust alternative to 'voter-centered approaches' in accounting for the observable complexities of political life, they would do well to take seriously the idea that parties are by turns cause and consequence of states and societies. This book should be required reading for all political sociologists. - Anthony S. Chen, Northwestern University
Political Parties and Organization Studies: The party as a critical case of organizing
Organization Studies, 2021
Organization scholars have extensively studied both the politics of organization and the organization of politics. Contributing to the latter, we argue for further and deeper consideration of political parties, since: (1) parties illuminate organizational dynamics of in- and exclusion; (2) internal struggles related to the constitution of identities, practices and procedures are accentuated in parties; (3) the study of parties allow for the isolation of processes of normative and affective commitment; (4) parties prioritize and intensify normative control mechanisms; (5) party organizing currently represents an example of profound institutional change, as new (digital) formations challenge old bureaucratic models. Consequently, we argue that political parties should be seen as ‘critical cases’ of organizing, meaning that otherwise commonplace phenomena are intensified and exposed in parties. This allows researchers to use parties as magnifying glasses for zooming-in on organizationa...