Democracy And The Student Left

This is a history of 1968 written from a new perspective-that of center-right student activists in West Germany. Based on oral history interviews and new archival sources, it examines the ideas, experiences, and repertoires of center-right students in this age of protest. Writing these activists back into the history of 1968 and its afterlives -including student protest, cultural revolt, internationalism, debates about left-wing violence and the terror of the Red Army Faction, the memory wars of the 1980s and beyond - reveals that this was a broader, more versatile, and, ultimately, more consequential phenomenon than the traditionally narrower focus on a left-wing minority allows. Other '68ers demonstrates that we need a more nuanced history of the 1968 generation and of generational conflict during these years. Student activists comprised individuals from across the political spectrum, who often had very different ideas about what kind of a society they envisaged and how to address the shortcomings of West German democracy. 1968 was a moment of intense political conflict, but it also played out within the student body and nurtured contrasting identities. This book shows that the center-right involvement in 1968 had real consequences. Many of the protagonists of this book would go on to pursue high-profile political careers and leave their mark on West German political culturey. Other '68ers therefore sheds fresh light on how West Germany's center-right dealt with the crisis of hegemony and political identity it experienced in the wake of 1968, how it coped with generational change, how it transformed and modernized after losing power at the national level for the first time in 1969, and how it managed to re-emerge so successfully in the 1980s.

"A collection of essays by active participants in the new student movement on American college campuses, this book represents the first systematic overview of that movement by the students themselves and incorporates some material which has not appeared before in book form."--Back cover.

Democracy in Europe has been a recent phenomenon. Only in the wake of World War II were democratic frameworks secured, and, even then, it was decades before democracy truly blanketed the continent. Neither given nor granted, democracy requires conflict, often violent confrontations, and challenges to the established political order. In Europe, Geoff Eley convincingly shows, democracy did not evolve organically out of a natural consensus, the achievement of prosperity, or the negative cement of the Cold War. Rather, it was painstakingly crafted, continually expanded, and doggedly defended by varying constellations of socialist, feminist, Communist, and other radical movements that originally blossomed in the later nineteenth century. Parties of the Left championed democracy in the revolutionary crisis after World War I, salvaged it against the threat of fascism, and renewed its growth after 1945. They organized civil societies rooted in egalitarian ideals which came to form the very fiber of Europe's current democratic traditions. The trajectories of European democracy and the history of the European Left are thus inextricably bound together. Geoff Eley has given us the first truly comprehensive history of the European Left--its successes and failures; its high watermarks and its low tides; its accomplishments, insufficiencies, and excesses; and, most importantly, its formative, lasting influence on the European political landscape. At a time when the Left's influence and legitimacy are frequently called into question, Forging Democracy passionately upholds its vital contribution.

On June 12, 1962, 60 young activists drafted a manifesto for their generation--The Port Huron Statement--that ignited a decade of dissent. Miller brings to life the hopes and struggles, the triumphs and tragedies, of the students and organizers who took the political vision of The Port Huron Statement to heart--and to the streets.

Within a framework of analysis and background by the four editors, this book presents a view from the grassroots of the 1989 student and mass movement in China and its tragic consequences. Here are the core eyewitness and participant accounts expressed through wall posters, students speeches, movement declarations, handbills, and other documents. In their introductions to the material, the editors address the political economy of the democracy movement, the evolving concept of democracy during the movement, the movement's contribution to China becoming a civil society, and the changing view of the Chinese Communist Party by students, intellectuals, workers and others, as the crisis unfolded.

In Misagh Parsa’s view, the outlook for democracy in Iran is stark. Gradual reforms will not be sufficient for real change: the government must fundamentally rethink its commitment to the role of religion in politics and civic life. For Iran to democratize, the options are narrowing to a single path: another revolution.