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'Is today's left really new? How has the European radical left evolved? Giorgos Charalambous interrogates his subject across three periods of intense political rupture - the late 1960s to late 1970s; the turn of the millennium; and post-2008. He challenges the conventional understanding of a 'new left', recognising the significance and problems inherent in language and labels. He examines the 'Long '68'', symbolised by the May uprisings in France, which saw the rise of new left forces and the widespread criticism by younger radical activists of traditional communist and socialist parties. He puts this side by side, with the turn of the millennium when the Global Justice Movement rose to prominence and changed the face of the international left, and also the period after the financial crash of 2008 and the rise of anti-austerity politics which initiated the most recent wave of new left parties such as Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece. With a unique 'two-level' perspective, Charalambous approaches the left through both social movements and party politics, looking at identities, rhetoric and organisation, and bringing a fresh new approach to radical history, as well as assessing challenges for both activists and scholars.
List of contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Abbreviations
Preface
Part I - Mobilisation, Resistance and the European Radical Left
1. Introducing the Approach
2. Analytical Framework
Part II - 'Newness' across Movement Waves and through Time
3. Social Movement Identities and Left Radicalism
4. Patterns in Social Movement Rhetoric
5. Organising in (Every Subsequent) Movement
Part III - Past and Present of European Radical Left Parties
6. Radical Left Party Identities in Motion
7. Continuities and Changes in Radical Left Party Rhetoric
8. Party Organisation on the European Radical Left
9. Conclusions: A Unified Retrospective
Notes
Index
About the author
Giorgos Charalambous is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Department of Politics and Governance, University of Nicosia. He is also the co-convenor of the Left Radicalism Specialist Group at the Political Studies Association. Charalambous is the author of European Integration and the Communist Dilemma (Ashgate, 2013), and has co-edited Party-Society Relations in Cyprus (Routledge, 2016) and Left Radicalism and Populism in Europe (Routledge, 2019).
Summary
A historical analysis of radical left parties and movements in Europe spanning the late 1960s to the anti-austerity movements of the late 2000s
