Karl Kautsky on Democracy and Republicanism

A strike in the time of COVID-19 pandemic: The 2020 health workers’ dispute in Hong Kong

“…Since the advent of systemic union decline in most of the industrial and post-industrial economies in the late 20th century two main schools of theory have sought to explain union renewal: mobilisation theory ( Kelly, 1998 ) and more conflicted discussion around SMU. This section will draw on both approaches to discuss dispute framing or leadership focus by unions and emphasise aspects of framing in non-democratic contexts.…”

“… Kelly (1998) argued that a sense of injustice is a condition but not sufficient means by which union organisers are able to mobilise members to pursue a particular policy objective. Blyton and Jenkins’s (2013) compared union strategies in the garment industry facing factory closures and the London Minimum Wage movement to argue that unions struggle to engage wider injustice concerns.…”

“…Leadership and democracy are clearly important aspects of the mobilisation thesis, but it is the SMU writers who discuss direct democracy as crucial to social movements. Kelly (1998: 122) sees direct democracy as transitory to more complex forms of decision-making in larger unions. Whilst in much SMU literature focussed on the global north draws important concerns over union democracy in non-SMU unions as lacking membership diversity ( Fletcher and Gapasin, 2008 : 182–186) as evidence of a lack of democracy but does no more than implying SMU democracy in the claim they represent most citizens’ interests, whilst Reiss (2005: 43-44) implies that narrow union democracy impedes wider social justice.…”

Are digital parties more democratic than traditional parties? Evaluating Podemos and Movimento 5 Stelle’s online decision-making platforms

“…Referendums, and similar institutions such as plebiscites, in which the citizenry is asked to express their preference often in the form of a Yes/No vote, have been used in a number of countries, most famously in Switzerland and California, to allow citizens to express their opinion on various propositions (Qvortrup, 2005; Suksi, 1993). Referendums have been associated with strongman politics and authoritarianism since at least the times of Napoleon III (Michels, 1915) and accused of excessively simplifying policy decisions (Kautsky, 2017). However, historically they have also been used within socialist parties and trade unions (see, e.g.…”

El carácter de la independencia paraguaya en el contexto de las revoluciones anticoloniales hispanoamericanas

“…Como hemos dicho en otro apartado de esta tesis, si bien toda revolución social es al mismo tiempo política, no toda revolución política llega a ser social, en la acepción que nos pareció más rigurosa y precisa. 932 KAUTSKY, Karl [1903]. La revolución social…, op.…”