2010s leftists faced demobilized civil society instead of mass parties
Evidence
Yet their “populism” also took a highly specific organizational form in the 2010s, both in Europe and the United States. Instead of the mass parties of the twentieth century, leftists were faced with a profoundly demobilized civil society which had driven citizens out of politics altogether, rendering the relations between elites and citizens highly volatile. The twin crises of the 2010s thus confronted the left with a twin set of dilemmas. The first dilemma concerned a question of substance. What was the natural base for a left-wing program, both in terms of its composition and the conditions for its mobilization? The second dilemma was one of form, and had to do with the more recent and vexing story of mass demobilization. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 17
Categorization
- DEFINE: Sets up the book’s core frame: the left’s twin dilemmas of substance (what base?) and form (how to mobilize a demobilized public).
- XREF: connects to: Post-social-democratic student movements must build themselves from nothing without prior leftist infrastructure — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1557; Populist-left politics emerged amid party decline and labor movement collapse — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 15; Human rights NGOs absorbed the neoliberal civil-society-versus-coercive-state dichotomy — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 60 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Populist-left politics emerged amid party decline and labor movement collapse
#expands(0.82) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 15 - Left populism helped destroy post-politics yet failed to restore mass politics
#corroborates(0.78) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 345 - Human rights NGOs absorbed the neoliberal civil-society-versus-coercive-state dichotomy
#complicates(0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 60