La tradicional división entre izquierda y derecha quedo desplazada por una nueva división suprana... more La tradicional división entre izquierda y derecha quedo desplazada por una nueva división supranacional entre integración o separación de la Unión Europea. Esta dinámica es muy notoria en Francia, donde Emmanuel Macron puso a Europa en el centro del debate político nacional, lo que disloco el histórico sistema bipolar de partidos.
This article analyzes the 2019 European election in France from the perspective of how European a... more This article analyzes the 2019 European election in France from the perspective of how European and domestic influences informed the principal parties’ campaigns and impacted voter choices. It then assesses the election’s European and domestic implications. It is argued that the election confirmed the fundamental reordering of the French party system around an “integration-versus-demarcation” cleavage that turned around pro- versus anti-European sentiments externally and liberal versus illiberal attitudes domestically. Though reflecting an improved result for an incumbent president’s party, at the European level the fractured parliament yielded by the election stands to complicate Macron’s federalizing ambitions for the European Union. In turn, domestically, the 2019 European election heralds a period of sociopolitical turbulence that not only threatens to derail Macron’s reformist agenda during the second half of his term but to jeopardize his 2022 reelection prospects.
Este ensayo desarrolla una explicación de clase y cultura sobre el persistente resurgimiento de l... more Este ensayo desarrolla una explicación de clase y cultura sobre el persistente resurgimiento de la derecha radical en Francia. Su principal afirmación es que la derecha radical es mejor entendida como una tradición política continua cuyo apelativo puede ser rastreado en las modalidades y consecuencias de la modernización económica y política del país desde mediados del siglo XIX. Se analizan los valores económicos y políticos específicos propios de los miembros de esta categoría social para ayudar a explicar su prolongada atracción hacia el excluyente y autoritario discurso y programas de la derecha radical francesa
For Europe, the Iran nuclear deal is a bittersweet story. Between 2003 and 2015, the Europeans pl... more For Europe, the Iran nuclear deal is a bittersweet story. Between 2003 and 2015, the Europeans played an important role in facilitating US-Iran nuclear diplomacy and eventually the agreement itself. After former US President Trump decided to exit the deal and revert to maximum economic pressure in 2018, the Europeans tried to recreate room for US-Iran engagement. While unsuccessful, they have nonetheless managed to remain relevant for both sides. The prospect of normalised economic relations with Europe has provided Iran with an incentive not to pursue nuclear weapons. As for the US, the nuclear deal – which still exists formally thanks to Europe – is the only framework available for re-engaging Iran in nuclear diplomacy, a prospect the new administration of Joe Biden has pledged to consider. Dismissing Europe’s efforts as ineffectual is therefore inaccurate since, in defending the nuclear deal, the Europeans have preserved a diplomatic bridge for US-Iranian re-engagement.
1. Introduction 2. Defining the radical right in France, past and present 3. The class-cultural r... more 1. Introduction 2. Defining the radical right in France, past and present 3. The class-cultural roots of the radical right: structures and expressions of independance 4. The age of contentment: petits independants during the belle epoque 5. The fateful transition: petits independants in the interwar period 6. The eclipse of the petty producer republic: petits independants from Vichy through the Fourth Republic 7. The age of decline: petits independants under the Fifth Republic 8. Epilogue: French workers in crisis and the entrenchment of the front national 9. The radical right in France in comparative perspective 10. Conclusion.
This article seeks to account for the emergence of radical populist parties in France and Germany... more This article seeks to account for the emergence of radical populist parties in France and Germany during the final two decades of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. These parties, of the Far Right in France and Far Left in Germany, have attracted the support of economically and socially vulnerable groups—industrial workers and certain service-sector strata—who
This dissertation attempts to account for the resurgence of the Far Right in France since the est... more This dissertation attempts to account for the resurgence of the Far Right in France since the establishment of democracy in the country in the final quarter of the nineteenth Century. Taking to task historical treatments of this political phenomenon for their failure to specify the conditions and ...
La tradicional división entre izquierda y derecha quedo desplazada por una nueva división suprana... more La tradicional división entre izquierda y derecha quedo desplazada por una nueva división supranacional entre integración o separación de la Unión Europea. Esta dinámica es muy notoria en Francia, donde Emmanuel Macron puso a Europa en el centro del debate político nacional, lo que disloco el histórico sistema bipolar de partidos.
This article analyzes the 2019 European election in France from the perspective of how European a... more This article analyzes the 2019 European election in France from the perspective of how European and domestic influences informed the principal parties’ campaigns and impacted voter choices. It then assesses the election’s European and domestic implications. It is argued that the election confirmed the fundamental reordering of the French party system around an “integration-versus-demarcation” cleavage that turned around pro- versus anti-European sentiments externally and liberal versus illiberal attitudes domestically. Though reflecting an improved result for an incumbent president’s party, at the European level the fractured parliament yielded by the election stands to complicate Macron’s federalizing ambitions for the European Union. In turn, domestically, the 2019 European election heralds a period of sociopolitical turbulence that not only threatens to derail Macron’s reformist agenda during the second half of his term but to jeopardize his 2022 reelection prospects.
Este ensayo desarrolla una explicación de clase y cultura sobre el persistente resurgimiento de l... more Este ensayo desarrolla una explicación de clase y cultura sobre el persistente resurgimiento de la derecha radical en Francia. Su principal afirmación es que la derecha radical es mejor entendida como una tradición política continua cuyo apelativo puede ser rastreado en las modalidades y consecuencias de la modernización económica y política del país desde mediados del siglo XIX. Se analizan los valores económicos y políticos específicos propios de los miembros de esta categoría social para ayudar a explicar su prolongada atracción hacia el excluyente y autoritario discurso y programas de la derecha radical francesa
For Europe, the Iran nuclear deal is a bittersweet story. Between 2003 and 2015, the Europeans pl... more For Europe, the Iran nuclear deal is a bittersweet story. Between 2003 and 2015, the Europeans played an important role in facilitating US-Iran nuclear diplomacy and eventually the agreement itself. After former US President Trump decided to exit the deal and revert to maximum economic pressure in 2018, the Europeans tried to recreate room for US-Iran engagement. While unsuccessful, they have nonetheless managed to remain relevant for both sides. The prospect of normalised economic relations with Europe has provided Iran with an incentive not to pursue nuclear weapons. As for the US, the nuclear deal – which still exists formally thanks to Europe – is the only framework available for re-engaging Iran in nuclear diplomacy, a prospect the new administration of Joe Biden has pledged to consider. Dismissing Europe’s efforts as ineffectual is therefore inaccurate since, in defending the nuclear deal, the Europeans have preserved a diplomatic bridge for US-Iranian re-engagement.
1. Introduction 2. Defining the radical right in France, past and present 3. The class-cultural r... more 1. Introduction 2. Defining the radical right in France, past and present 3. The class-cultural roots of the radical right: structures and expressions of independance 4. The age of contentment: petits independants during the belle epoque 5. The fateful transition: petits independants in the interwar period 6. The eclipse of the petty producer republic: petits independants from Vichy through the Fourth Republic 7. The age of decline: petits independants under the Fifth Republic 8. Epilogue: French workers in crisis and the entrenchment of the front national 9. The radical right in France in comparative perspective 10. Conclusion.
This article seeks to account for the emergence of radical populist parties in France and Germany... more This article seeks to account for the emergence of radical populist parties in France and Germany during the final two decades of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. These parties, of the Far Right in France and Far Left in Germany, have attracted the support of economically and socially vulnerable groups—industrial workers and certain service-sector strata—who
This dissertation attempts to account for the resurgence of the Far Right in France since the est... more This dissertation attempts to account for the resurgence of the Far Right in France since the establishment of democracy in the country in the final quarter of the nineteenth Century. Taking to task historical treatments of this political phenomenon for their failure to specify the conditions and ...
Europe Today: A Twenty-First Century Introduction, 6th Edition, 2023
The purpose of the present chapter is to assess whether Macron’s presidency has lived up to the e... more The purpose of the present chapter is to assess whether Macron’s presidency has lived up to the expectations raised by his election in 2017 and to flesh out the departures and continuities it presents within the longer run of French political development. It will evaluate Macron’s leadership and policies against those of his immediate predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, with a specifically domestic focus on the economic and sociopolitical arenas. Space limitations combined with the eventfulness of Macron’s first term in office unfortunately mean that discussion of Macron’s European and foreign policy will have to be left for another time.
The New Authoritarianism: Vol 2 A Risk Analysis of the European Alt-Right Phenomenon, 2019
The turbulent recent history of Front National under Marine Le Pen's leadership is traced. From a... more The turbulent recent history of Front National under Marine Le Pen's leadership is traced. From a period in which FN was dominated by statist sovereignist policies, deep-seated ideological and strategic divisions arose whereby earlier far-right nativist authoritarian ideology eventually returned and took over the party. The in-fighting led to a muddled and erratic FN electoral campaign in 2017 and a fall in electoral appeal. Bitter rivalry between the two factions eventually split the party, with the Philippot (FN deputy leader) faction quitting in 2017. The populist anti-immigrant nationalist tone of the emergent FN may have mixed appeal for the changing character of the electorate and voter groups. The chapter also considers the viability of Marine Le Pen's continuing leadership of a far-right authoritarian FN.
This book attempts to account for the resurgence of significant political movements of the Radica... more This book attempts to account for the resurgence of significant political movements of the Radical Right in France since the establishment of democracy in the country at the end of the nineteenth century. Taking to task historical treatments of the Radical Right for their failure to specify the conditions and dynamics attending its emergence, and faulting the historical myopia of contemporary electoral and party-centric accounts of the Front National, it tries to explain the Radical Right’s continuing appeal by relating the socio-structural outcomes of the processes of industrialization and democratization in France to the persistence of economically and politically illiberal groups within French society. Specifically, the book argues that, as a result of the country’s protracted and uneven experience of industrialization and urbanization, significant pre- or antimodern social classes, which remained functionally ill-adapted and culturally ill-disposed to industrial capitalism and liberal democracy, subsisted late into its development.
This article contributes to the literature on the Europeanization of West European party systems ... more This article contributes to the literature on the Europeanization of West European party systems through a qualitative examination of the French case. Positing that Europeanization reflected the displacement of the traditional domestic left-right cleavage by a novel supranational integration-versus-demarcation cleavage articulated around European integration, the article posits that this new cleavage transformed the country’s political party system. After tracing the incipient Europeanization of the latter during the 1990s and 2000s, the article illustrates how this integration-versus-demarcation cleavage became operative in France in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. It is argued that the advances in European integration fueled Euroscepticism in the country which, initially harnessed by populist niche formations, splintered governing party electorates between the winners and losers from integration. Europeanization was consummated when a political entrepreneur—Emmanuel Macron—emerged who prioritized the defense of the winners from European integration in opposition to the populist parties that harnessed Europe’s losers.
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Papers by Gabriel Goodliffe
within the longer run of French political development. It will evaluate Macron’s leadership and policies against those of his immediate predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, with a specifically domestic focus on the economic and sociopolitical arenas. Space limitations combined with the eventfulness of Macron’s first term in office unfortunately mean that discussion of Macron’s European and foreign policy will have to be left for another time.