Stephanie L. Mudge is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Davis.
How were the parties of the center-left converted from Keynesian
technocracy to third-way neoliberalism? Stephanie Mudge presents a
highly original account featuring changes in the economics
profession leading to the displacement of economic experts in
government policy and party politics by political consultants and
spin doctors. Covering the United States and four European
countries, the book adds importantly to our understanding of recent
political history, the transformation of left-wing political
parties, and today’s crisis of democratic politics.
*Wolfgang Streeck, Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Societies*
Why is the Left failing everywhere? Because back in the 1990s,
left-wing parties gave up on growing their core constituencies,
turning instead to a cadre of technicians. Mudge argues that
success of center-left parties rested upon their ability to ‘win,
represent, and shape how people think.’ This latter goal used to be
the province of ‘economist theoreticians’ who embraced a ‘Keynesian
ethic.’ But as economics changed, so did the visions of the
economists who guided left parties. Why the Left is dying owes much
to their interventions.
*Mark Blyth, Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs,
Brown University*
Stephanie L. Mudge has written a magisterial account explaining how
neoliberalism came to be a dominant way of thinking among the
European and American Left. Through a detailed and rich
sociological account, she explains that leftist parties changed
their way of seeing and wanting to shape the social world because
of their shifting relationship to economic knowledge. Economic
experts, far from the original organic intellectuals of labor
movements, became the mediators of ideological transformation,
shaping party positions and confirming neoliberalism as the current
version of progressive politics. This is a necessary book for
everyone with an interest in progressive politics.
*Jenny Andersson, Co-Director, Max Planck Sciences Po Center on
Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo)*
Leftism Reinvented provides a wealth of information, and very few
scholars exhibit Mudge’s mastery of the economic policies across so
many parties over such a stretch of time…It is necessary reading
for anyone seeking to understand our current political
predicament.
*American Journal of Sociology*
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