Arguments for a new left
Answering the free market right
Drawing an alternative view of knowledge from the practice of social movements, Wainwright establishes a new understanding of transformative political agency as self-consciously experimental and involving a combination of representative and participatory forms of democracy.
Drawing an alternative view of knowledge from the practice of social movements (from the 1968 student revolt, through militant shop stewards’ organisations and the women’s movement, to the peace and green activism of the 1980s) as well as from new philosophical currents, Wainwright counters Hayek’s individualism and denial of the legitimacy of collective action, with a conception of knowledge as fundamentally social. On this foundation she establishes a new understanding of transformative political agency as self-consciously experimental and involving a combination of representative and participatory forms of democracy.
Preface
The arguments: a new left and the democratisation of knowledge
- An eastern challenge to the western left
- Encounters in the new Europe
- At the heart of the challenge
- Knew kinds of knowledge for new forms of democracy
- From social movement to self-management: a case study from the women’s movement
- From grass-roots organising to new economic networks
- From extra-parliamentary opposition to parties of a new kind
- Why movements matter in the new Europe
- Ending the Cold War
- Conclusions: transforming governability
About the authors
Hilary Wainwright
Hilary Wainwright is a leading researcher and writer on the emergence of new forms of democratic accountability within parties, movements and the state. She is the driving force and editor behind Red Pepper, a popular British new left magazine, and has documented countless examples of resurgent democratic movements from Brazil to Britain and the lessons they provide for progressive politics.
As well as TNI fellow, she is also Senior Research Associate at the International Centre for Participation Studies at the Department for Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK and Senior Research Associate at International Centre for Participation Studies', Bradford University. She has also been a visiting Professor and Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles; Havens Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison and Todai University, Tokyo. Her books include Reclaim the State: Experiments in Popular Democracy (Verso/TNI, 2003) and Arguments for a New Left: Answering the Free Market Right (Blackwell, 1993).
Wainwright founded the Popular Planning Unit of the Greater London Council during the Thatcher years, and was convenor of the new economics working group of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly from 1989 to 1994.
Recent publications from Public Services & Democracy
Privatising EuropeThis working paper and infographic provide an overview of a great ‘fire sale’ of public services and national assets across Europe that is providing profits for a few transnational companies but is often fiercely opposed by its citizens. |
Participatory alternatives to privatisationExperience worldwide shows that EC-imposed privatisation on crisis countries will not work. The alternative is not reinforcing the status quo, but using citizen power and labour to reinvigorate public services and democratically transform the state.
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The future of Public Enterprises in Latin America and the WorldAn international seminar in Montevideo, co-organised by TNI and the Uruguayan government, shared the latest learning and innovation by state-owned enterprises across Latin America and affirmed their importance as instruments for economic and social development. |
Something rotten in the ANC stateThe palaces of President Zuma and the massacre of miners at Marikana symbolise how the gulf between rich and poor has grown in the 18 years since the African National Congress came to power in South Africa. Hilary Wainwright reports on how formerly loyal ANC activists are turning against their government |
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