Marc Stears
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199291632
- eISBN:
- 9780191700668
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291632.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
In the first three decades of the 20th century, two groups of radical political theorists — one British and one American — were bound together in a unique ideological relationship. This book provides ...
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In the first three decades of the 20th century, two groups of radical political theorists — one British and one American — were bound together in a unique ideological relationship. This book provides an examination of the intellectual dialogue that constituted that bond. Drawing on archival research, and employing methods of conceptual analysis, it examines the efforts of these two initially distinctive political movements to forge a single ideology capable of motivating far-reaching reform in both of their countries. In so doing, the book emphasizes the exceptional development of American progressivism and British socialism, arguing that the intellectual inspirations and political programmes of both movements were constantly shaped and reshaped by international ideological exchange. It analyses the complex political demands of these movements and enables the works of their leading protagonists, including G. D. H. Cole, Herbert Croly, Harold Laski, and Walter Lippmann, to emerge as significant contributions to modern political thought.Less
In the first three decades of the 20th century, two groups of radical political theorists — one British and one American — were bound together in a unique ideological relationship. This book provides an examination of the intellectual dialogue that constituted that bond. Drawing on archival research, and employing methods of conceptual analysis, it examines the efforts of these two initially distinctive political movements to forge a single ideology capable of motivating far-reaching reform in both of their countries. In so doing, the book emphasizes the exceptional development of American progressivism and British socialism, arguing that the intellectual inspirations and political programmes of both movements were constantly shaped and reshaped by international ideological exchange. It analyses the complex political demands of these movements and enables the works of their leading protagonists, including G. D. H. Cole, Herbert Croly, Harold Laski, and Walter Lippmann, to emerge as significant contributions to modern political thought.
Marc Stears
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199291632
- eISBN:
- 9780191700668
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291632.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Between 1909 and 1925, the American nationalist progressives and British socialist pluralists outlined two sharply distinct political philosophies: one apparently state-centred, the other fiercely ...
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Between 1909 and 1925, the American nationalist progressives and British socialist pluralists outlined two sharply distinct political philosophies: one apparently state-centred, the other fiercely anti-statist. The nationalist progressives, it appeared, wished to construct an entirely new central state machine in the United States, one capable of overcoming the obstacles of localism and sectionalism and imposing a nationwide political agenda and social identity across several States. The socialist pluralists, on the other hand, seemed fiercely to reject the state-centred programmes of their contemporaries. They celebrated diversity, social difference, and group autonomy, and argued for a radical decentralization of authority in all aspects of social, economic, and political life. And yet, despite these stark differences, the ideological evolution of these two groups also appeared intricately intertwined. Indeed, not only did the groups' leaders involve themselves in a continual dialogue, they also identified individual programmes of concrete reform that could be shared between them.Less
Between 1909 and 1925, the American nationalist progressives and British socialist pluralists outlined two sharply distinct political philosophies: one apparently state-centred, the other fiercely anti-statist. The nationalist progressives, it appeared, wished to construct an entirely new central state machine in the United States, one capable of overcoming the obstacles of localism and sectionalism and imposing a nationwide political agenda and social identity across several States. The socialist pluralists, on the other hand, seemed fiercely to reject the state-centred programmes of their contemporaries. They celebrated diversity, social difference, and group autonomy, and argued for a radical decentralization of authority in all aspects of social, economic, and political life. And yet, despite these stark differences, the ideological evolution of these two groups also appeared intricately intertwined. Indeed, not only did the groups' leaders involve themselves in a continual dialogue, they also identified individual programmes of concrete reform that could be shared between them.
Peter A. Swenson
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195142976
- eISBN:
- 9780199872190
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195142977.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Submits additional evidence for the cross‐class alliance theory of welfare state development in order to challenge competing theories, especially those that deny the positive role that capitalist ...
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Submits additional evidence for the cross‐class alliance theory of welfare state development in order to challenge competing theories, especially those that deny the positive role that capitalist power plays in determining the timing and shaping of reform. It shows, contrary to influential institutionalist theory, that the New Dealers did not act in bold defiance of monolithic opposition from capitalists, for in fact business organizations were internally divided; that corporate progressives were not disappointed with the New Deal; and that the New Dealers were not interested in building or defending state institutions that would endow bureaucrats and policy experts with the autonomous power to execute progressive policy without regard to capitalist interests. The discussion also challenges other theories that focus on the following: the loss of capitalist power due to the Depression and therefore politicians’ supposed new freedom to ignore business confidence; horse trading between internationalist business interests with little to lose from progressive legislation, and labor groups with little to lose from free trade; and direct pressure from capitalists for regulatory social reform.Less
Submits additional evidence for the cross‐class alliance theory of welfare state development in order to challenge competing theories, especially those that deny the positive role that capitalist power plays in determining the timing and shaping of reform. It shows, contrary to influential institutionalist theory, that the New Dealers did not act in bold defiance of monolithic opposition from capitalists, for in fact business organizations were internally divided; that corporate progressives were not disappointed with the New Deal; and that the New Dealers were not interested in building or defending state institutions that would endow bureaucrats and policy experts with the autonomous power to execute progressive policy without regard to capitalist interests. The discussion also challenges other theories that focus on the following: the loss of capitalist power due to the Depression and therefore politicians’ supposed new freedom to ignore business confidence; horse trading between internationalist business interests with little to lose from progressive legislation, and labor groups with little to lose from free trade; and direct pressure from capitalists for regulatory social reform.
David Schlosberg
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199256419
- eISBN:
- 9780191600203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199256411.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Attention to the environmental movement does not guarantee a sense of respect for its diversity, so this chapter is dedicated to a study of the limitations inherent in various approaches to the study ...
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Attention to the environmental movement does not guarantee a sense of respect for its diversity, so this chapter is dedicated to a study of the limitations inherent in various approaches to the study of environmentalism(s) in the United States. The argument here is that many examiners are more interested in building explanatory models than in understanding the diversity of environmentalism; hence, many models are built on a foundation of exclusion. The chapter first takes a brief look at the limits of standard histories of the environmental movement. It goes on to critically examine the current state of the literature on the environmental movement by investigating methods of classification of variety, the attempt to forge an environmental vanguard (hegemonic progressivism), and the myriad claims to unlocking the motivations of environmental actors. All of these approaches are described as having a tendency to exclude evidence, examples, or categories that do not fit the proposed model.Less
Attention to the environmental movement does not guarantee a sense of respect for its diversity, so this chapter is dedicated to a study of the limitations inherent in various approaches to the study of environmentalism(s) in the United States. The argument here is that many examiners are more interested in building explanatory models than in understanding the diversity of environmentalism; hence, many models are built on a foundation of exclusion. The chapter first takes a brief look at the limits of standard histories of the environmental movement. It goes on to critically examine the current state of the literature on the environmental movement by investigating methods of classification of variety, the attempt to forge an environmental vanguard (hegemonic progressivism), and the myriad claims to unlocking the motivations of environmental actors. All of these approaches are described as having a tendency to exclude evidence, examples, or categories that do not fit the proposed model.
Michael Freeden
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198294146
- eISBN:
- 9780191599323
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019829414X.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Philosophical liberalism poses a challenge for the ideological analyst since it illustrates the divide between ideology and political philosophy discussed in Part I of the book, even though at least ...
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Philosophical liberalism poses a challenge for the ideological analyst since it illustrates the divide between ideology and political philosophy discussed in Part I of the book, even though at least one of its most representative formulators (R. Dworkin) refers to its distinct ideological features. It is almost entirely ahistorical despite superficial allusions to the historical liberal tradition, and adopts the conceptual purism of some philosophers in its attempts to isolate the synchronic constitutive principles of liberalism ‘as such’; it is formalistic and rule bound. It is currently the most carefully argued and academically the most widely discussed liberal theory, and moreover, follows the academic trend of resurrecting major ideologies—Marxism is the best‐known example—within the confines of philosophical discourse and, like twentieth‐century Marxism, it exhibits the scholastic tendency of relatively circumscribed circles to focus detailed and often repetitive debate on a small number of texts, so that liberal principles are stated in such a way as to blur the distinctions between the theory and the ideology. Significantly, American philosophical liberalism is both similar to and different from other American liberal counterparts and a comparison between the two is therefore of some interest. Philosophical liberalism, it is contended, has borrowed a false horizon for American liberalism, stretching back to Kant but unrelated to the thought‐behaviour of American liberals; the hitherto existing horizons of those liberals, whether accumulative or diminishing, and whether compatible or incongruous, hark back instead to Locke, to progressivism and the New Deal, and to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.Less
Philosophical liberalism poses a challenge for the ideological analyst since it illustrates the divide between ideology and political philosophy discussed in Part I of the book, even though at least one of its most representative formulators (R. Dworkin) refers to its distinct ideological features. It is almost entirely ahistorical despite superficial allusions to the historical liberal tradition, and adopts the conceptual purism of some philosophers in its attempts to isolate the synchronic constitutive principles of liberalism ‘as such’; it is formalistic and rule bound. It is currently the most carefully argued and academically the most widely discussed liberal theory, and moreover, follows the academic trend of resurrecting major ideologies—Marxism is the best‐known example—within the confines of philosophical discourse and, like twentieth‐century Marxism, it exhibits the scholastic tendency of relatively circumscribed circles to focus detailed and often repetitive debate on a small number of texts, so that liberal principles are stated in such a way as to blur the distinctions between the theory and the ideology. Significantly, American philosophical liberalism is both similar to and different from other American liberal counterparts and a comparison between the two is therefore of some interest. Philosophical liberalism, it is contended, has borrowed a false horizon for American liberalism, stretching back to Kant but unrelated to the thought‐behaviour of American liberals; the hitherto existing horizons of those liberals, whether accumulative or diminishing, and whether compatible or incongruous, hark back instead to Locke, to progressivism and the New Deal, and to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Christopher Hood
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198297659
- eISBN:
- 9780191599484
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198297653.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
In the four chapters of Part II, public management ideas that loosely correspond to each of the four polar world views identified by cultural theory are discussed. Here, the cultural‐theory framework ...
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In the four chapters of Part II, public management ideas that loosely correspond to each of the four polar world views identified by cultural theory are discussed. Here, the cultural‐theory framework is mixed with a historical perspective to survey recurring approaches to public management that can be loosely characterized as hierarchist (this chapter), individualist (Ch. 5), egalitarian (Ch. 6), and fatalist (Ch. 7). Looks briefly and selectively at four classic hierarchist approaches to public management. Two of them (Confucian public management in classical China and the cameralist tradition of early modern Europe) rarely receive a mention in conventional public‐management books—but those older traditions merit attention from present‐day students of public management, and not just for pietist or antiquarian reasons, for they show some of the different contexts in which hierarchist ideas have flourished, and their fate can help assess the strengths and weaknesses of doing public management the hierarchist way. The other two hierarchist approaches discussed are Progressivism and Fabianism.Less
In the four chapters of Part II, public management ideas that loosely correspond to each of the four polar world views identified by cultural theory are discussed. Here, the cultural‐theory framework is mixed with a historical perspective to survey recurring approaches to public management that can be loosely characterized as hierarchist (this chapter), individualist (Ch. 5), egalitarian (Ch. 6), and fatalist (Ch. 7). Looks briefly and selectively at four classic hierarchist approaches to public management. Two of them (Confucian public management in classical China and the cameralist tradition of early modern Europe) rarely receive a mention in conventional public‐management books—but those older traditions merit attention from present‐day students of public management, and not just for pietist or antiquarian reasons, for they show some of the different contexts in which hierarchist ideas have flourished, and their fate can help assess the strengths and weaknesses of doing public management the hierarchist way. The other two hierarchist approaches discussed are Progressivism and Fabianism.
Christopher McKnight Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195342536
- eISBN:
- 9780199867042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342536.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines three important strands of progressive thought in the late nineteenth century to reveal the tensions between ideas about progress, religion, and science, and resulting ...
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This chapter examines three important strands of progressive thought in the late nineteenth century to reveal the tensions between ideas about progress, religion, and science, and resulting predictions about America's religious future. This chapter first delineates a populist‐secular group of thinkers, exemplified by Robert Ingersoll, “the great agnostic” proponent of freethinking, whose prophecies blended the older jeremiad form with a heightened emphasis on atheistical science and Enlightment rationality. The second strand of thought explored in this chapter came from the ranks of progressive intellectuals, represented in part by the powerful pragmatic philosophy of religion developed by William James in his book, Varieties of Religious Experience. Finally, this chapter argues for a third diverse group comprised largely of ministers and social gospel activists, such as Walter Rauschenbusch, who attempted to reform the nation along explicitly Christian lines.Less
This chapter examines three important strands of progressive thought in the late nineteenth century to reveal the tensions between ideas about progress, religion, and science, and resulting predictions about America's religious future. This chapter first delineates a populist‐secular group of thinkers, exemplified by Robert Ingersoll, “the great agnostic” proponent of freethinking, whose prophecies blended the older jeremiad form with a heightened emphasis on atheistical science and Enlightment rationality. The second strand of thought explored in this chapter came from the ranks of progressive intellectuals, represented in part by the powerful pragmatic philosophy of religion developed by William James in his book, Varieties of Religious Experience. Finally, this chapter argues for a third diverse group comprised largely of ministers and social gospel activists, such as Walter Rauschenbusch, who attempted to reform the nation along explicitly Christian lines.
Ann Lee Bressler
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195129861
- eISBN:
- 9780199834013
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195129865.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This book offers the first cultural history of Universalism and the Universalist idea – the idea that an all-good and all-powerful God saves all souls. Ann Bressler argues that Universalism began as ...
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This book offers the first cultural history of Universalism and the Universalist idea – the idea that an all-good and all-powerful God saves all souls. Ann Bressler argues that Universalism began as a radical, eschatological, and communally oriented faith, and only later became a “comfortably established” progressive and individualistic one. Although Universalists are usually classed with Unitarians as pioneering Protestant liberals, the author argues that they were in fact quite different from both contemporary and later liberalism in their ideas and goals. Unitarians began by rejecting the Calvinist idea of sin as corporate, universal, and absolute, replacing it with their moral self-cultivation. Universalists, on the other hand, accepted the Calvinist view of absolute corporeal sinfulness but insisted on absolute corporeal salvation. Bressler’s claim is that Universalists, in their defiance of individualistic moralism, were for much of the nineteenth century the only consistent Calvinists in America. She traces the emergence of the Universalists’ “improved” Calvinism and its gradual erosion over the course of the nineteenth century, when the effort to maintain the early synthesis of Calvinist and Enlightenment ideals failed as the Universalists were swept up in the tide of American religious individualism and moralism. By the late nineteenth century they increasingly extolled moral responsibility and self-cultivation.Less
This book offers the first cultural history of Universalism and the Universalist idea – the idea that an all-good and all-powerful God saves all souls. Ann Bressler argues that Universalism began as a radical, eschatological, and communally oriented faith, and only later became a “comfortably established” progressive and individualistic one. Although Universalists are usually classed with Unitarians as pioneering Protestant liberals, the author argues that they were in fact quite different from both contemporary and later liberalism in their ideas and goals. Unitarians began by rejecting the Calvinist idea of sin as corporate, universal, and absolute, replacing it with their moral self-cultivation. Universalists, on the other hand, accepted the Calvinist view of absolute corporeal sinfulness but insisted on absolute corporeal salvation. Bressler’s claim is that Universalists, in their defiance of individualistic moralism, were for much of the nineteenth century the only consistent Calvinists in America. She traces the emergence of the Universalists’ “improved” Calvinism and its gradual erosion over the course of the nineteenth century, when the effort to maintain the early synthesis of Calvinist and Enlightenment ideals failed as the Universalists were swept up in the tide of American religious individualism and moralism. By the late nineteenth century they increasingly extolled moral responsibility and self-cultivation.
Azar Gat
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207153
- eISBN:
- 9780191677519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207153.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Military History, History of Ideas
This chapter examines the connection of fascist modernism and the visions of machine warfare by examining two other pronounced modernist ideologies: American Progressivism and Marxism. This chapter ...
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This chapter examines the connection of fascist modernism and the visions of machine warfare by examining two other pronounced modernist ideologies: American Progressivism and Marxism. This chapter discusses Charles A. Lindberg who became the greatest living symbol of the conquest for air which sparked the flames of the fascist expression in the Nazi regime. The present chapter seeks to suggest a more general explanation for the Lindbergh affair and his presumed influence in the insignificant yet influential emergence of fascism in America. The equivalents of the concept of fascism in the form of Populism, Progressivism, American ‘nativism’ and technological modernism are discussed in this chapter.Less
This chapter examines the connection of fascist modernism and the visions of machine warfare by examining two other pronounced modernist ideologies: American Progressivism and Marxism. This chapter discusses Charles A. Lindberg who became the greatest living symbol of the conquest for air which sparked the flames of the fascist expression in the Nazi regime. The present chapter seeks to suggest a more general explanation for the Lindbergh affair and his presumed influence in the insignificant yet influential emergence of fascism in America. The equivalents of the concept of fascism in the form of Populism, Progressivism, American ‘nativism’ and technological modernism are discussed in this chapter.
Lisa Siraganian
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199796557
- eISBN:
- 9780199932542
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199796557.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter explores the polarity between spectator or readerly irrelevance on the one hand and bodily incorporation of the reader’s body on the other, to investigate writers and artists who ...
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This chapter explores the polarity between spectator or readerly irrelevance on the one hand and bodily incorporation of the reader’s body on the other, to investigate writers and artists who articulate positions negotiating between these two poles. In particular, this chapter examines the paradoxical figure of William Carlos Williams, who understands collage as a way to productively complicate the notion of readerly irrelevance. The autonomous art object of Stein and Lewis finds its most serious early challenge in the Dada aesthetics of Marcel Duchamp and Mina Loy, who contest both the frame’s integrity and art’s removal from politics by insisting on the inseparability of art and life. Responding to Duchamp’s and Loy’s notions of framing, Williams’s Spring and All (1923) negotiates a shifting compromise between art that rejects the incorporation of the spectator’s world and art that insists upon it, while his less-known work, The Great American Novel (1923), implies that this new theory of framing facilitates specific forms of social progress that he hopes could preempt the state’s progressive goals.Less
This chapter explores the polarity between spectator or readerly irrelevance on the one hand and bodily incorporation of the reader’s body on the other, to investigate writers and artists who articulate positions negotiating between these two poles. In particular, this chapter examines the paradoxical figure of William Carlos Williams, who understands collage as a way to productively complicate the notion of readerly irrelevance. The autonomous art object of Stein and Lewis finds its most serious early challenge in the Dada aesthetics of Marcel Duchamp and Mina Loy, who contest both the frame’s integrity and art’s removal from politics by insisting on the inseparability of art and life. Responding to Duchamp’s and Loy’s notions of framing, Williams’s Spring and All (1923) negotiates a shifting compromise between art that rejects the incorporation of the spectator’s world and art that insists upon it, while his less-known work, The Great American Novel (1923), implies that this new theory of framing facilitates specific forms of social progress that he hopes could preempt the state’s progressive goals.
