Continue reading "Identity politics vs class politics - 5: What is identity politics? " »
Continue reading "Identity politics vs class politics - 5: What is identity politics? " »
Posted at 10:13 AM in Labour Party, liberal-conservative, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Goff speech, Identity politics, Labour Party, new social movements, Phil Goff
Continue reading "Identity politics vs class politics - 1: Introduction" »
Posted at 03:09 PM in Labour Party, liberal-conservative, new politics, NZ Left, social democracy, the left | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: class politics, identity politics, Labour Party, Phil Goff, Phil Goff speech, socially liberalism, The left
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 26: Conclusions (and bibliography)" »
Posted at 12:34 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Jim Anderton, Matt McCarten, New Zealand politics, NewLabour Party, NLP
Posted at 04:45 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Jim Anderton, Matt McCarten, NewLabour Party, NLP
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 24: Resistance to party change" »
Posted at 11:53 AM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Bruce Jesson, Jim Anderton, Margaret Wilson, Matt McCarten, New Zealand Labour Party, New Zealand politics, NewLabour Party, NLP
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 23: The Alliance oligarchy" »
Posted at 01:11 PM in Alliance party, democratic discourse, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Jim Anderton, New Zealand politics, NewLabour Party, NLP, Robert Michels, social democracy
Social democratic parties have traditionally occupied an ambiguous position in relation to the economic system. While maintaining various degrees of opposition to the consequences of capitalism, they agree to work within the framework of capitalism and bourgeois democratic institutions. Such ‘State socialists imply that although class conflict, economic crisis, exploitation and poverty are consequences of capitalism, they can be eliminated (through state action) while capital remains’ (Allen et al., 1978: p.24). Operating within this framework, such parties continually adjust to the constraints of that environment. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 22: The Alliance’s orientation to the economic system" »
Posted at 01:31 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Jim Anderton, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy
After the formation of the Alliance, the NewLabour Party’s (NLP) speed in policy moderation increased substantially. This was largely a result of two processes: first, the pressure applied by the other Alliance partners for the NLP to drop its own more radical policies, and second, the NLP’s desire to keep the coalition together, which inevitably meant compromising on its own policies. Furthermore, involvement in the Alliance now gave the Anderton group in the NLP more power and influence through uniting with their more conservative allies in the other Alliance parties against the NLP leftwing. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 21: A shift to the right in economic policy" »
Posted at 10:47 AM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Jim Anderton, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy
During the early formation period of the Alliance, public opinion polls gave the as-yet-unformed coalition percentage ratings in the mid-30s. These results were largely illusionary, as some sections of the public which were probably outside of the Alliance’s potential support-base simply flirted with the novelty of the new coalition. Yet it still indicated that the Alliance was likely to be a substantial political force in at least the short-term future. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 20: The success of the Alliance" »
Posted at 11:13 AM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The NewLabour Parry (NLP) was born out of a rejection of political expediency. The people who formed the party perceived the old Labour Party to have given up its social democratic principles and traditions and implemented policies for which it had no mandate. Therefore the early NLP party organisation placed a strong emphasis on the fact that it would not be tempted by the methods of expediency and that it would strongly guard its original principles. But Anderton and the NLP constituted a peculiar contradiction – they claimed to be principled; they rejected expediency, yet they also claimed to be pragmatic and attempted to reject an image of idealism and of being ideologues. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 19: Principle and pragmatism" »
Posted at 01:08 PM in Alliance party, democracy, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Fourth Labour Government, Jim Anderton, Jim Flynn, Labour Party, Matt McCarten, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy
The establishment of the Alliance, was a major turning point for many of those who remained in the radical left faction of the NLP. While some of the radical left capitulated to the swell of enthusiasm for an Alliance, others were concerned with the opportunism which they perceived in the NLP’s involvement in the Alliance. After all, membership of the Alliance depended less on what a party stood for, than what it stood against. Hence all five Alliance parties stood for distinctly different politics when they joined, but claimed a commonality in what they opposed — neoliberal economic policy. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 18: Political differences within the Alliance" »
Posted at 11:28 AM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Bruce Jesson, Greens, Jim Anderton, Matt McCarten, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy, Winston Peters
The formation of the Alliance in 1991 was a watershed in the NewLabour Party’s (NLP) development, especially in that all four of the party’s Alliance partners were considerably to the right of the NLP on most economic issues, and largely unsympathetic to the NLP’s strong ideological emphasis on working class interests. Thus the NLP’s semi-merger with the Greens, Democrats, Liberals and Mana Motuhake contributed to the NLP leadership’s rightward movement. Politically, this project led to a watering-down of the policy and principles that the NLP has worked for. Organisationally it led to the NLP, especially its branches, being subsumed into the larger Alliance structure. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 17: Formation of the Alliance" »
Posted at 11:21 AM in Alliance party, Green Party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Green Party, Greens, Jim Anderton, Matt McCarten, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy, The Alliance
Following the NewLabour Party’s (NLP) 1990 general election campaign, some type of post-election evaluation period was made inevitable by the rushed nature of the pre-election preparations and the less than hoped for election result. The party finally had real time to take stock and for some to take a broader view of the direction of the party as an organisation and a political force. The post-election period was therefore a time for members to consider some fundamentals of the party: structure, organisation, political and activist orientation, and the decision-making process. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 16: Post-election internal reactions" »
Posted at 01:54 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: 1990 general election, Alliance, Bruce Jesson, Chris Trotter, Jim Anderton, NewLabour Party, NLP, Phil Amos, social democracy
The general election of 1990 was the first real test for the NewLabour Party (NLP). The existence of elections every three years serves to intensify the selection and refining of a party’s particular policies and political positions. The election acts to test these policies as well as the party’s organisation structure including its ability to mobilise activists for the event. Elections also reassert the importance of the party’s leadership, as they shift the emphasis to the idea of particular members of the party potentially becoming representatives in the national legislature. Furthermore, because elections test the success of the organisation, they automatically lead to some sort of internal party evaluation of the many decisions that were made prior to the election. This means that elections are often substantial turning points in the nature of political parties. This was certainly the case with the NLP. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 15: The 1990 general election" »
Posted at 01:05 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: 1990 general election, Alliance, Jim Anderton, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy
Parliamentary participation tends to require parties of the working class to seek electoral support outside a narrow definition of what might be seen as the working class. And, as can be seen in the evolution of the NewLabour Party (NLP), the compromises needed to gain this wide support had the effect of weakening the party’s original ideology. As the NLP moved beyond an attempt to appeal primarily to working people, its stated ideology and policies have shifted correspondingly. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 14: Interclass support and social democracy" »
Posted at 10:58 AM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Jim Anderton, Matt McCarten, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy
Initially the NewLabour Party (NLP) membership voted against a purely parliamentary focus for the party. The 1989 Constitution stated that the objectives of the NLP ‘may include education, activity and organisation at all levels of New Zealand Society, not restricted to political electioneering’ (NLP, 1989: p.2). The NLP thus decided on a strategy that sought to put emphasis both on winning seats in Parliament and mobilising community fight-backs against the attacks on working people. As National Councillor Laila Harre contended, ‘It would be opportunist to expect people to elect you to Parliament if you’re not doing work in the community’ (quoted in CPNZ, 1991a: p.17). [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 13: The NLP’s orientation to Parliament" »
Posted at 04:20 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: abortion, Alliance, Jim Anderton, Laila Harre, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy
The pre-election exigencies that acted to centralise the NewLabour Party's (NLP) organisational structure served also to make the party’s policymaking process a less than democratic and thorough affair. As a result, the early policymaking process acted as a crude filter on the diversity of perspectives within the organisation. Economic policy, in particular, was rather conservative as a result, with an essentially middle-of-the-road Keynesian approach adopted [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 12: Development of party policy" »
Posted at 11:37 AM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Jim Anderton, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy
On being formed in 1989, the NewLabour Party (NLP) adopted an organisational structure very similar to that of the old Labour Party. It had policy commissions, party branches, electorate councils, district councils, a National Council, a National Executive, and the usual positions within this (such as leader, president, vice president, general secretary). In a sense, organisational forms and routines perfected in the old Labour Party to ensure centralised control were used as armatures to give shape and organisational form to the NLP. The influence of this established labour organisation, which had evolved over three-quarters of a century, meant that the NLP was born with a more top-down party organisational structure than might otherwise have been the case. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 11: Structure and organisation" »
Posted at 02:42 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Bruce Jesson, Francesca Holloway, Jim Anderton, Matt McCarten, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy, Sue Bradford
In the history of the NewLabour Pary (NLP) – which this series of blog posts is covering - the question of whether the NLP would simply constitute just ‘another Labour Party’ was clearly intertwined with the struggle inside the party over its adoption of a particular ideology. The NLP was being pulled in two directions. On one side were those who wanted to re-create the NLP in the image of the old Labour Party, with its parliamentary bias, and generally Keynesianist economic approach. On the other were those in the radical left and social liberals who wanted a party concerned with bringing about more fundamental social change, or even some form of ‘socialism’. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 10: Party ideology" »
Posted at 01:26 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Bruce Jesson, Jim Anderton, Matt McCarten, NewLabour Party, NLP, Ronald Inglehart, social democracy
As well as the revolutionary-reformist divide within the NewLabour Party (NLP) discussed in previous blog posts in this series on the history of the NLP, there were other axis-lines of significant political conflict in the early organisation. Many social liberals were strongly represented at the founding conference, and were involved in several important early debates over party policy (especially about environmental and gender issues). Most significant was the involvement of activists from the women’s movement. According to Alison McCulloch, an observer at the first conference, ‘Feminists at the conference were one of the most united groups’ (McCulloch, 1989: p.13). [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 9: The influence of the social liberals" »
Posted at 11:22 AM in Alliance party, NZ Left, sexual politics, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: abortion, Alliance, feminism, Jim Anderton, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy
The incompatibility of the three factions detailed in the previous blog posts proved too great to allow their coexistence, and the first eighteen months of the NewLabour Party (NLP) saw the far-left groups expelled, marginalised, or dissolved fully into the organisation. The Communist Left organisation was the first to be purged, after they made clear their intention to attempt to split the party. There was some debate and dissension from party members over the expulsion (Boyle, 1989), but no one outside the Communist Left appeared to be willing to support their somewhat inept tactical manoeuvres inside the NLP. However, the expulsion of the Permanent Revolution Group (PRG) in April 1990 for unspecified acts of disruption and for unspecified incompatibility with the NLP constitutional principles and objectives was not so clear-cut and uncontentious. The PRG’s expulsion provides an interesting example of the political process of the NLP National Executive and also of the tensions inside of the organisation. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 8: Elimination of the radical left" »
Posted at 01:45 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Jim Anderton, Matt McCarten, NewLabour Party, NLP, Permanent Revolution Group, social democracy, Sue Bradford
The
existence of these three broad groups of the ‘labourites’, the ‘social
liberals’, and the ‘radical left’ inside the organisation (detailed in
the previous blog post),
did not mean that all party members were either in one or another, but
that they constituted broad divisions within the organisation. So these
groups were by no means mutually exclusive — there were some overlaps
in terms of membership of these groups. For example, there were, of
course, many ex-radical left members moving in a rightward direction.
Keith Locke (pictured on the right), for instance would probably be
better described as a member of the social liberals despite his former
membership of the Socialist Action League (SAL). [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 7: Loose and fluid alliances" »
Posted at 04:40 PM in Alliance party, NZ Left, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, Jim Anderton, Matt McCarten, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy
The NewLabour Party (NLP) was a classic social democratic labour party aimed at the pursuit of working class orientated social change through the institution of parliamentary democracy. Although it was a reaction to another parliamentary party of the left moving significantly to the right, the NLP too provides evidence of the inability of social democratic parties to maintain their initial radicalism due to their subsequent need to moderate their policy and political strategy. The party therefore provides an interesting opportunity to examine party transformation in general. This second blog post in the series on the NLP’s short history in New Zealand politics – which contains research carried out on this political project back in 1995 - therefore attempts to discuss theory in relation to social democracy’s transformation and set up some sort of framework for understanding the NLP’s short history. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[NewLabour Party history] 2: Theoretical background" »
Posted at 02:42 PM in Alliance party, NZ Political Parties, social democracy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Alliance, NewLabour Party, NLP, social democracy