The problem of social democracy

Editorial // Martin McIvor

As the diverse and divergent viewpoints collected in this issue indicate, it is in a broad, open and necessarily contested sense that this journal will interpret its new remit.

The once and future ideology

Feature // Sheri Berman

As the great social democrats of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century recognised, the most important thing politics can provide is a sense of the possible.

Revisionism, past and present

Feature // Nina Fishman

Social democratic activists using Bernsteinian methods have to take account of the general course of the movement as well as the factors which influence it.

The potential of British social democracy

Feature // Ross McKibbin

The Labour Party in the last decade has mistakenly believed that social democracy and modern Britain do not fit. Social democracy is probably now better grounded than it has ever been.

Renovating European social democracy

Feature // Ben Clift

The contours of European political economy in the decades ahead is a contested future, and social democracy as a political movement continues to play a key role.

Alternatives to neo-liberalism in the Third World

Feature // Richard Sandbrook

The World Bank’s shift to a ‘post-Washington consensus’ akin to social liberalism has moved the debate on legitimate development strategies to the left and towards more statist policies.

Economic citizenship and the new capitalism

Feature // Frances O’Grady

If social democratic parties are to successfully address the big challenges at the turn of the twenty-first century, the workplace and collective organisation cannot be ignored.

Social democracy and family values

Feature // David McKnight

A renewal of progressive politics depends in part on a rethinking of the role of family, partly in relation to the workplace and working time, but also in relation to the commodification of family life.

Social democracy beyond productivism

Feature // Tony Fitzpatrick

While social democrats have been dexterous at identifying the negative externalities of free markets they have been slower to admit those of economic growth per se.

Engaging with Cameronism

Commentary // Oscar Reyes

Whether thinking through our own politics post-Blair, or confronting the Conservatives’ potential for resurgence, we need a more nuanced interpretation of the Cameronite project.

Who’s afraid of the Respect Party?

Commentary // Rachel Briggs

Some interpret any mobilisation along religious or ethnic lines as a sign of separatism. But it is providing an important space for young Muslims to try out British citizenship for size.

Making space for children

Commentary // David Lammy

Central to the creation of a child-friendly public realm is the belief that we must shape our built environment around people’s needs and aspirations rather than the vagaries of the market.

Reconfiguring security

Commentary // Conor Gearty

Labour has an opportunity to reconfigure its approach to security in a way that promises to be better both for the Party’s internal sense of itself and for the safety of the country as a whole.

A different double shuffle

Commentary // David Coates

The left, within and outside Labour, needs to view the Brown government as the gateway to a more radical future, rather than as an agent capable of delivering that future if not pushed.

Learning to compete

Feature // Sally Tomlinson

Exhortations to obtain qualifications and skills will only be of use if there are educational, economic and political policies which aim for a secure and productive life for all.

The public exams crisis

Feature // Trevor Fisher

The last two decades have seen public exams subjectd to immense, politically driven change. It is time to accept that this road is becoming a cul-de-sac.

The politics of food

Notebook // Kamran Nazeer

We have developed a dysfunctional relationship to food. Some form of collective response seems necessary. Yet the politics of food create particular problems for the progressive left.

Nigerian selections

Feature // Patrick Wilmot

If the president-elect, despite the mode of his ‘election’, can mobilise Nigeria’s vigorous civil society, he will achieve the legitimacy that his party’s vote-rigging destroyed.

Adam Curtis: The Trap

Review // Bill Blackwater

The Trap was that rarest of things: an intellectually and culturally significant piece of television.

Barack Obama: The Audacity of Hope

Review // Maria Neophytou

In a crowded field of candidates, Obama’s presidential campaign has a magic and a momentum.

Colin Hay: Why we hate politics

Review // Daniel Leighton

Political disaffection is one of the most discussed but least understood phenomena of our times.

Paul Mason: How the Working Class Went Global

Review // Ben Jackson

A journalistic extension of E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class.

Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello: The New Spirit of Capitalism

Review // William Davies

The moral promises made by capitalism are a critical feature of how it defends and sustains itself.