This thesis explores how economic performance, measured as real GDP-growth per capita, affects the vote share of parties which relies on radical ideological platforms. Using a fixed effect model with panel data, based on real electoral outcomes of 18 western European democracies, the result reveals an ambiguous reality. The overall conclusion implies that low growth rates benefit the electoral success of radical-right parties and holds for robustness checks. No solid evidence of the relationship is found on the radical-left side.The result further reveals that the individuals decision to vote radical is relative more affected by the ongoing business cycle trend between the elections rather than sudden changes close to the election day. The relationship also appears to be stronger among nations of southern Europe.

This study explores radical pacifists’ intellectual engagement with the black freedom movement by examining the New York-based magazine Liberation between 1956 and 1965. It argues that two priorities shaped Liberation’s responses to the movement: the concern to promote the philosophy and practice of nonviolent direct action, and the concern to advocate radical social change in the United States. Until 1965 Liberation promoted the civil rights movement as a potential catalyst for the nonviolent reconstruction of U.S. democracy. Liberation became a forum for exploring the common ground as well as the tensions between radical pacifist priorities and those of various black freedom activists. The tensions are particularly apparent in Liberation’s reflections on the challenges of linking peace activism with the freedom struggle in the early 1960s, and in its 1964-65 debate over civil rights leaders’ strategy of coalition with the Democratic Party in the context of the escalating war in Vietnam.

Although Bakunin's 1842 article, "The Reaction in Germany," published in the organ of the Dresden Left Hegelians, Deutsche Jahrbucher, is generally held to be the most radical and eloquent manifesto of Left Hegelianism, the standard historical commentary tends to consider his pre-1842 Russian works as far removed from this revolutionary ideal. Most historians have long failed to discern the logical continuity in Mikhail Bakunin's thought before and after the "pivotal" date of 1840. Indeed, his intellectual development is usually dividied into two distinct, mutually exclusive periods. During the first period, pre-1840, Bakunin is presented as a conservative and a monarchist, dedicated to a spiritual and political compromise with the "rational reality of the Tsarist regime. After his arrival in Berlin in 1840, however, one is suddenly confronted with the political anarchist and instigator of world revolution. However, this abrupt dichotomy which appears in most historical commentaries dealing with Bakunin's writings and activities cannot be maintained. The hypothesis that there even occurred a break in the evolution of Bakunin's thought rests on a misinterpretation of his early Russian Hegelian works. / The goal of this study is to demonstrate that the concern with the practical application of philosophy into a political tool for revolutionary acton forms the central theme of Bakunin's early works; and to show that his Berlin period constitutes the logical continuation of his early theoretical position. In effect, the present study represents a revindication of the young Bakunin and attempts to prove that his Hegelianism was central to the formation of his radical position. At the same time, it situates Russian Left Hegelianism in the mainstream of European radicalism, by showing how the ideas developed by Bakunin were moving in a direction parallel to those of the Young Hegelian movement in Germany.

British radicals established a pro-revolutionary society in Paris in the late months of 1792, at a time when their own government, under William Pitt the Younger, had proscribed all overt support for the French Revolution. The expatriate club was founded at a crossroads in British political and diplomatic culture therefore, and at a vital stage in the course of the French Revolution. Often the victims of judicial pursuit in both Britain and France, the members of the British Club have been deemed "men without countries" by one nineteenth-century commentator. Yet British radical activists in Paris were not simply pawns in a wider diplomatic struggle. In the early French republic, they founded a radical community at White's Hotel, where political agendas intersected with private initiatives. This associational world was part of a broad network of reform stretching across the Channel. It was influenced by a tradition of enquiry and improvement which had developed in Britain during the latter half of the eighteenth century. This tradition led members of the radical community to engage with the Revolution on issues which dominated public debate in France but which also echoed their concern for the overhaul of British political culture. They intervened on the question of the foundation of a new republican constitution at the turn of 1793, providing a range of blueprints which reflected the varied nature of the club's political character. Some also wrote eyewitness observations of the Revolution back to Britain, sketching their impressions for an audience who had, in their view, been misled by a hostile British press.

This study explores radical pacifists’ intellectual engagement with the black freedom movement by examining the New York-based magazine Liberation between 1956 and 1965. It argues that two priorities shaped Liberation’s responses to the movement: the concern to promote the philosophy and practice of nonviolent direct action, and the concern to advocate radical social change in the United States. Until 1965 Liberation promoted the civil rights movement as a potential catalyst for the nonviolent reconstruction of U.S. democracy. Liberation became a forum for exploring the common ground as well as the tensions between radical pacifist priorities and those of various black freedom activists. The tensions are particularly apparent in Liberation’s reflections on the challenges of linking peace activism with the freedom struggle in the early 1960s, and in its 1964-65 debate over civil rights leaders’ strategy of coalition with the Democratic Party in the context of the escalating war in Vietnam.

Lancashire redefined popular politics and national identity in its own image. The perceived threat of invasion by Napoleon, together with the Irish Rebellion, sustained the evolution in extra-parliamentary politics that had begun in reaction to the American and French revolutions. The meanings and principles of 'radicalism,' 'loyalism' and 'Britain' continued to be debated and contested in 1798-1812. Elite loyalism became even more exclusive, developing into the Orange movement. Radicals remained silent until the Napoleonic invasion scares had faded and opportunities arose for renewed vocal criticisms of government foreign and economic policy from 1806. Conflicts re- emerged between radicals and loyalists in the middle classes and gentry which provided the training for a new generation of postwar radical leaders and the popularity of the free trade campaign. Inhabitants of Lancashire felt British in reaction to the French and Irish, but it was a Lancashire Britishness. Political identities and actions followed national patterns of events but were always marked with a regional stamp. This was in part because most political movements were held together by a shared 'sense of place' rather than vague notions of class-consciousness or shared class identity. A sense of place manifested itself in the regional organisation of strikes, petitions and the Orange institution. Furthermore, it could also entail a common bitter or defiant provincialism against the government or monarchy. In an atmosphere of anti-corruption and a growing desire for peace, this provincial frustration ironically brought professed loyalists closer to radicalism in campaigns against the Orders in Council and other government policies. Provincialism and other elements of regional identity ensured that any ideas of Britishness were tempered through local concerns and allegiances, but an identity with the nation that was not an acquiescent acceptance of national tropes and stereotypes. Lancashire Britishness was commercial, manufacturing, and above all, independent from homogenisation and the impositions of government.

This dissertation is an attempt to portray the revolutionary character of the American Civil War through a comparative methodology utilizing the French Revolution as both point of influence and as a parallel example. Within this novel context, subtle trends in the ideological development of the Republican Party's Radical wing undertake new meaning and an alternative revolutionary heritage takes shape around an idealization of the universalism of the French and Haitian Revolutions of the 1790s. The work argues that through a diffusion of ideas and knowledge of events from the streets of Paris into the fields of Haiti and onto the shores of the American coast, a small faction of militant abolitionists latched onto the ideal of the Haitian Revolution as their own legacy. By the late 1830s, this radical edge of the antislavery movement embarked onto two courses, both derived from and influenced by their newfound ideology. The first was towards violent direct action against slavery while the second aimed at legitimizing radical new legal theories and creating the political structure necessary to bring about their enforcement. While on the one hand John Brown and Gerrit Smith pursued militant action, on the other Alvan Stewart and Salmon P. Chase sought a political and legal redefinition of American society through the Liberty and eventually Republican parties. With the coming of war in the 1860s, these two trends, violence and radical politics, converged in the Union war effort. In the midst of the Civil War and the early fight for Reconstruction, Radical Republicans and their allies in the Union Army displayed themselves as American Jacobins. Through a set of comparisons with French Revolutionary events and political debates, this thesis argues that the result of the ideological development between the American Revolution and the Civil War Era in the United States was the creation of a revolutionary ideology parallel to that of French Jacobinism. By the time of their fall from power, the Radical Republicans had seen their ideals both lambasted as the radical edge of politics and then transformed into the status quo, helping to prepare the nation for modernity.

The present dissertation deals with how a segment of the Swedish immigrant group mobilized to be included in American society. Three Swedish-American working class organizations have been studied as to how they interacted to promote their interests in Chicago and the Lake View district during the first decades of this century. Reflecting political, cultural and economic aspects of the immigrant workers' lives the case studies indicate that Swedish immigrant workers constructed an organizational network parallel to the one they had left in the old country known as "folkrörelsesamverkan" (popular movement cooperation). Like in Sweden this network was constructed as a haven for social mobilization, with the exception that in the American context an ethnic aspect was added.In the formative phase of their haven, historical retrospect and the defence of organized labor in the old country were important aspects of their activities. Through the educational and cultural programs that were organized, the group articulated and consolidated its position for interaction with American society including other ethnic groups. Political radicalism, including a pro-labor temperance movement, distinguished the group both within the Swedish enclave and the American labor movement. Nevertheless, in constant conflict and cooperation with other groups, new bonds of solidarity were developed which gradually enabled a re-definition of the group to include fewer ethnic and more class aspects. Once a wider definition of the group was implemented, the need for separate Swedish-American organizations decreased. Hence in the 1930s, by which time the Swedish immigrants had been included in the American labor movement, the Swedish-American labor movement also withered. / digitalisering@umu

Thesis (M.A.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed February 10, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-41).

This thesis constitutes the first full-length study of Polish Communists in Canada, a group that provided a substantial segment of the countries socialist left in the early 20th century. It traces the roots of socialist support in Poland, its transplantation to Canada, the challenges it faced within an ethnic community heavily influenced by Catholicism, the complications caused by its links to the Comintern, and its changing strength and decline. It offers a deeper understanding of the ways in which the Communist party was able to appeal to certain ethnic groups, such as through cultural outreach, as well as its complicated and often arguably counter-productive relationship with the Comintern. It also furnishes important information on the efforts of the RCMP and Polish consulates to maintain control over the communists, as well as how generally improved material conditions among Poles, especially following the Second World War, along with the influence of the Cold War, accounted for a rapid decline in support. The thesis is primarily based on sources generated by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs or, more precisely, by the Polish consulates in Winnipeg, Montreal and Ottawa. One the Canadian side, the thesis took advantage of RCMP records, Canadian security bulletins, immigration records and Polish-language newspapers printed in Canada. By utilizing these sources, this study not only analyses the interaction of the Polish Canadian communist movement with other segments of the Polish community in Canada, but it also moves beyond the introverted approach that has characterized most studies of ethnic organizations in Canada by placing the movement within a “Canadian” context to analyze its relations with the government, broader segments of Canadian society, and the Communist Party of Canada (CPC).