A Response to Giorgios Kallis’ Notions of Socialism and Growth

ABSTRACT

Kallis’ discussion of degrowth in a transition to socialism is misleading and substantially detached from the current context, especially with recurring cataclysms due to climate change and the requirements to implement a programme to prevent even worse outcomes while there is a narrowing window of opportunity to do so. The fallacies of Kallis’ arguments originate in his misinformed account of economic and physical growth relative to thermodynamics and ecological processes, his feeble grasp of capitalist relations, and his gross misrepresentation of socialist, and specifically ecosocialist, thought.     

From Provocation to Challenge: Degrowth,Capitalism and the Prospect of “Socialism without Growth”: A Commentary on Giorgios Kallis

Giorgios Kallis argues that Degrowth, as a pluralistic convergence of both theoretical perspectives and social movements, is part of a renewal of the critique of capitalism based on the ecological contradictions of this social order. In “Socialism without Growth” Kallis engages with other, more classical, approaches that have examined the contradictions of capitalism and the material conditions for a future, ecologically viable postcapitalist social order. After a quick exposition of the lineaments of a general theory of surplus and accumulation based on Bataille, Polanyi and Georgescu-Roegen, Kallis mobilizes Marx’s theory of accumulation to examine the growth drivers of capitalism. I will argue that economic growth in advanced capitalism can best be explained as a relation that articulates capitalist overproduction to overconsumption, and outline some analytical tools that such an explanation can provide to those interested in understanding the specific growth drivers of contemporary capitalism and their social and ecological consequences. This implies moving beyond the model outlined by Marx and mobilizing concepts and categories developed by the over-accumulation approach to capitalism, those developed by some of Degrowth’s most vocal Marxist critics, such as Foster. Through my dialogue with Kallis I will try and bridge these two approaches.     

Is Anybody Listening? Evidence That Voters Do Not Respond to European Parties’ Policy Statements During Elections

Although extensive research analyzes the factors that motivate European parties to shift their policy positions, there is little cross‐national research that analyzes how voters respond to parties’ policy shifts. We report pooled, time‐series analyses of election survey data from several European polities, which suggest that voters do not systematically adjust their perceptions of parties’ positions in response to shifts in parties’ policy statements during election campaigns. We also find no evidence that voters adjust their Left‐Right positions or their partisan loyalties in response to shifts in parties’ campaign‐based policy statements. By contrast, we find that voters do respond to their subjective perceptions of the parties’ positions. Our findings have important implications for party policy strategies and for political representation.     

The Labor(s) of Degrowth

The degrowth debate so far has lacked a clear vision of what social subjects, and which processes of political subjectivation, can turn its vision into a political strategy. In this contribution to the debate on degrowth and eco-socialism, I point to the place of labor in the politics of socio-ecological revolution, arguing that degrowth should aim for a truly democratic, workers’ controlled production system, where alienation is actively countered by a collective reappropriation of the products of labor and by a truly democratic decision-making process over the use of the surplus. Such strategy must be based on an extended concept of class relations that goes beyond the wage labor relation, and toward a broader conception of work as a (gendered and racialized) mediator of social metabolism. I conclude that ecosocialist degrowth should take the form of a struggle for dealienating both industrial and meta-industrial labor.     

Heuristics Behaving Badly: Party Cues and Voter Knowledge

Party cues provide citizens with low‐cost information about their representatives’ policy positions. But what happens when elected officials deviate from the party line? Relying on the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we examine citizens’ knowledge of their senators’ positions on seven high‐profile roll‐call votes. We find that although politically interested citizens are the group most likely to know their senator's position when she votes with the party, they are also the group most likely to incorrectly identify their senator's position when she votes against her party. The results indicate that when heuristics “go bad,” it is the norm for the most attentive segment of the public to become the most misinformed, revealing an important drawback to heuristic use.     

Attitudes on the Size of Unemployment Benefits: Ideology and Numbers

The divide separating the political left from right is often expressed in specific numbers. The proper size of unemployment benefits is a key example of such a disagreement, with the left generally favoring higher levels of benefits than the right. However, little is currently known about how voters make up their mind on such policy relevant numbers. Using two survey experiments, this article shows that while Danish voters’ attitudes on unemployment benefits are correlated with their ideological position, they may also be strongly affected by the ways in which politically relevant numbers are presented and elicited. Specifically, when making up their minds on such numbers, voters are highly susceptible to anchoring effects and a unit effect. Furthermore, voters are affected more by precise numbers than by round numbers. Together, these results suggest that political actors may in some cases move public opinion closer to specific policy positions simply by presenting the relevant numbers in certain ways.     

Governing diversity: Dutch political parties' preferences on the role of the state in civic integration policies

This article analyses political debates about civic integration policies in the Netherlands, so as to identify different conceptions of the role of the state in ensuring social cohesion by governing diversity. Drawing on the literature on party systems, it presents an analysis of political party positions on the role of the state in civic integration along two dimensions: economic distribution on the one hand, and sociocultural governance on the other hand. I find that while the large majority of Dutch political parties adopt authoritarian positions on the sociocultural axis in favour of state intervention to protect Dutch culture and identity, their positions diverge significantly on the classic economic Left–Right dimension. The most contentious issue in Dutch civic integration politics is whether the state, the market or individual migrants should be responsible for financing and organising courses. Thus, this article proposes an innovative model for analysing the politics of citizenship, which enables us to comprehend how citizenship policies are shaped not only by views on how identity and culture relate to social cohesion, but also by diverging perspectives on socio-economic justice.     

Generations,political attitudes and voting behavior in Taiwan and Hong Kong

Society changes with the addition of new members. Different generations have distinct historical experiences, which may shape their political stance across a spectrum of attitudes and behaviors. This symposium includes four articles analyzing generational politics in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The studies show that there are behavioral and attitudinal differences between the young and the old in both places. As overall voter turnout has declined in Taiwan, youth turnout has declined even more. In particular, the “China factor” is the main driving force to the younger generations’ political activism. Youths in both Taiwan and Hong Kong exhibit a strong local identity that differentiates them from the Chinese. The stronger the identity is, the more politically active they are.     

What Can Performance Information Do to Legislators? A Budget‐Decision Experiment with Legislators

Studies on the influence of performance information on budgeting decisions have produced contradictory findings. This article offers a framework of the parliamentary context that links performance information to legislators’ budgeting decisions. The framework suggests that the impact on politicians’ allocations will differ depending on whether performance information is reflected in the budget proposal, whether the allocation issue concerns a politically difficult trade‐off for the decision maker, and whether information falls into a receptive partisan mind. The experimental study uses 57 actual legislators. The results show that the introduction of performance information into legislators’ deliberation process leads to stronger deviations from the status quo allocation. This difference occurs because performance information highlights more clearly the expected consequences of budgetary changes and allows for more pronounced reactions. More informed decisions, however, might make compromise among legislators more difficult because individual positions will become more polarized.     

Economic Insecurity,the Social Market Economy,and Support for the German Left

This article explores the relationship between hard economic times, inequality, and support for the far Left, using the case of Die Linke, or ‘Left party’, in Germany. Using recent survey data, the relationship among voters' social characteristics, economic attitudes, and rising electoral support for Die Linke is explored. In Germany, support for the far Left does not appear to be based solely on ideological extremism or economic pessimism, but also on beliefs about economic inequalities and governmental policy responses. This evidence indicates that supporters of the far Left are not simply ‘the losers’ from economic modernisation, but rather citizens in both Eastern and Western Germany characterised by shared social and economic circumstances and similar beliefs about economic redistribution. It also suggests fruitful avenues for research on the relationship between economic decline and support for the Left across advanced industrial democracies.     

Left–right ideology as an inferential device in multiparty systems: Can citizens overcome low information by imputing parties' policy positions?

This study examines the extent to which knowledge about parties' ideological Left–Right positions can be used schematically by voters to impute these parties' stances on specific policy issues. Can Left–Right familiarity help citizens, whose knowledge of political and societal issues is often limited, to overcome the low information problem? Based on two Swedish panel studies, we show that - in contrast to the American two-party context – the least knowledgeable voters benefit most from using inferences based on parties' Left–Right locations. The effectiveness of schema-based deduction is thus dependent on its place within a given political culture. In the Swedish multiparty context, the Left–Right dimension is meaningful for most voters, and can be used schematically to partly alleviate a lack of knowledge.     

Beyond the Limits of Nature: A Social-ecological Perspective on Degrowth as a Political Ideology

This article offers a critical analysis of the ideological position of degrowth from the perspective of social ecology. It agrees with Giorgios Kallis' call to abolish the growth imperative that capitalism embodies today, but it also presents a critique of the conceptual underpinnings of this notion. More precisely, I argue that degrowth as an ideological platform reproduces a binary conception of society and nature, an oppositional mentality which is a key concept to hierarchical epistemology. Degrowth as a political agenda is thus prone to appropriation to authoritarian ends. In order to temper this tendency and help degrowth as a tool of analysis reach its liberatory potential, I advocate its consideration alongside a social-ecological position.     

Corbynism: Social Democracy in a New Left Garb

This article traces some of the rhetoric flowing from Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party to the New Left, a political and intellectual movement in the UK which rose up to challenge the Stalinisation of socialism. These New Left lineages appear most clearly in the value denoted by both movements toward extra‐parliamentary politics. Indeed, the work of the New Left intellectual Ralph Miliband considers this factor to be a criterion by which we can assess the extent to which Corbyn’s party has surpassed the traditional ‘Labourist’ mould. By going beyond the movement’s early rhetoric, I show that it hasn’t. Instead, I present evidence that Corbyn’s Labour is a deeply social democratic one. The article offers an explanation for this assessment based on comparison of the contexts from which both the New Left and Corbynism emerged, and outlines an analytical path for future scholarship that emphasises continuity as well as change, and wards against ideological bias.     

Perceptions of Partisan Ideologies: The Effect of Coalition Participation

Recent scholarship in comparative political behavior has begun to address how voters in coalitional systems manage the complexity of those environments. We contribute to this emerging literature by asking how voters update their perceptions of the policy positions of political parties that participate in coalition cabinets. In contrast to previous work on the sources of voter perceptions of party ideology in parliamentary systems, which has asked how voters respond to changes in party manifestos (i.e., promises), we argue that in updating their perceptions, voters will give more weight to observable actions than to promises. Further, coalition participation is an easily observed party action that voters use as a heuristic to infer the direction of policy change in the absence of detailed information about parties’ legislative records. Specifically, we propose that all voters should perceive parties in coalition cabinets as more ideologically similar, but that this tendency will be muted for more politically interested voters (who have greater access to countervailing messages from parties). Using an individual‐level data set constructed from 54 electoral surveys in 18 European countries, we find robust support for these propositions.     

Talking the Vote: Why Presidential Candidates Hit the Talk Show Circuit

The 2000 presidential election found the major party presidential candidates chatting with Oprah Winfrey, Rosie O'Donnell, and Regis Philbin, trading one-liners with Jay Leno and David Letterman, and discussing rap music on MTV. This study investigates the impact of entertainment-oriented talk show interviews of presidential candidates, using the 2000 election as a case study. I consider why such shows cover presidential politics, why candidates choose to appear on them, and who is likely to be watching. This discussion yields a series of hypotheses concerning the effects of these interviews on public attitudes and voting behavior. I test my hypotheses through a content analysis of campaign coverage by entertainment-oriented talk shows, traditional political interview shows, and national news campaign coverage, as well as through a series of statistical investigations. I find that politically unengaged voters who watch entertainment-oriented TV talk shows are more likely to find the opposition party candidate likeable, as well as to cross party lines and vote for him, relative to their counterparts who are more politically aware or who do not watch such shows .     

Neoliberal feminism as political ideology: revitalizing the study of feminist political ideologies

Abstract

The emerging literature on neoliberal feminism appears to signal the revitalization of the study of feminist ideologies, suspended since the mid-1980s. However, it is argued here that scholars tend to conceptualize neoliberal feminism in a way that inhibits ideological analysis, as exemplified in Nancy Fraser’s Fortunes of Feminism. They take classifications of feminist political ideologies from the 1980s as representative of the only true feminisms, and thus view neoliberal feminism as a perversion, rather than an outgrowth, of earlier feminisms. This account of the emergence of neoliberal feminism is both historically inaccurate and politically problematic: it positions feminists as passive in the face of an overpowering neoliberal agency, and limits feminists’ capacity to imagine themselves as agents of political and ideological change. Building on Michael Freeden’s work on political ideologies, an alternative account of neoliberal feminism is offered, one that locates feminist agency in the production of new feminist ideologies.     

Still men’s parties? Gender and the radical right in comparative perspective

This framing paper introduces the symposium on gender and the radical right. With the exception of a few recent studies, gender issues have received little attention in research on the European radical right. The purpose of this symposium is to address that and examine (1) whether radical right parties are still ‘men’s parties’ – parties led and supported primarily by men and (2) to what extent and how women and women’s concerns have been included by these parties. It argues that radical right parties have changed their appeal since their origins in the 1980s. There is now evidence of the fact that radical right parties, at least in some countries, exhibit an active political involvement of women and engage in some representation of women’s concerns. This puts them in a more ‘standardised’ political position vis-à-vis other parties. Given the current lack of focus on this topic, and given the recent gendered changes in radical right parties, this symposium stresses the academic and political importance of studying gender relations in radical right politics.     

Learning to live with irregular migration: towards a more ambitious debate on the politics of ‘the problem’

What might be gained by learning to live with ‘the problem’ of irregular migration, rather than attempting to solve it? This article engages two senses of ‘the problem’ at stake: first, the ongoing nature of displacement and migration and second, the contested justice claims that sit behind different policy perspectives. The second sense of the problem (its political dimension) is rarely addressed explicitly in public debate. Yet direct engagement with the political dimension offers the potential to unlock debate from a polarised impasse. To make this argument, I first diagnose debate on irregular migration in terms of three archetypal positions and examine their implicit justice claims. I then argue for a more ambitious debate that pushes contending justice claims to their logical extensions. Debate of this kind requires a more coherent defence of justice claims, whether they are based in communitarian, cosmopolitan, anti-capitalist or hybrid values with respect to citizenship and political community. The article concludes with an illustration of how this approach can generate momentum for less circular, more sustainable and politically achievable policy responses. The argument is made with reference to illustrative examples from Australia and Europe but holds for a variety of contexts where ‘the problem’ is framed in similar ways.     

When is Changing Policy Positions Costly for Politicians? Experimental Evidence

Although changing policy positions is often thought of as costly for politicians, this may not always be the case. We present findings from two survey experiments designed to assess how people respond to politicians who change positions on an issue. We examine the direct effects of position changes on both summary evaluations of a candidate and ratings of a candidate’s character. We find that the effect of changing positions varies across issues and that the passage of time attenuates the negative effects of a change of position. We also find that although individual voters prefer a candidate who moves closer to their own preferred policy position to one who sticks to a disliked policy position, in the aggregate changing policy positions may be costly unless the prospective new position is supported by a supermajority of the public.