Radicalism or Reformism
The Sources of Working-class Politics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7253291 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Seymour Martin Lipset (Stanford University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1983 |
| Volume | 77 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-18 |
| Publication date | 1983-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1956008 |
| OpenAlex | W2316225112 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 92 |
| References cited | 61 |
From my work on my doctoral dissertation (Lipset 1950, 1968) down to the present, I have been interested in the problem of “American exceptionalism.” That curious phrase emerged from the debate in the international Communist movement in the 1920s concerning the sources of the weakness of left-wing radical movements in the United States (Draper 1960, pp. 268-72; Lipset 1977a, pp. 107-61). The key question repeatedly raised in this context has been, is America qualitatively different from other industrial capitalist countries? Or, to use Sombart's words, “Why is there no Socialism in the United States?” (Sombart 1976). In a forthcoming book, I evaluate the hypotheses advanced by various writers from Karl Marx onward to explain the absence of an effective socialist party on the American political scene. (For a preliminary formulation, see Lipset 1977b, pp. 31-149, 346-63.) If any of the hypotheses are valid, they should also help to account for the variation among working-class movements in other parts of the world. In this article, therefore, I shall reverse the emphasis from that in my book and look at socialist and working-class movements comparatively, applying elsewhere some of the propositions that have been advanced to explain the American situation
Argument (complex analysis · Communism · Context (archaeology · Exceptionalism · Political economy · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Socialism · Sociology · Working class · History · Law · Political Economy and Marxism
Pathways to Twentieth‐Century Industrial Politics
Economic Organizations and Political Space
Disorganized Capitalism?
An Overview
Organized Interests in the Economy
Rational Action, Political Space, and Historical Reality
The Post‐War Years
A Theory of Exchange in Industrial Relations Systems
Organized Industrial Relations Between the Wars
Political Space and European State Traditions
The Historical Roots of Political Violence
Conservative Parties and the Birth of Modern Democracy in Europe
Reforming to Survive
Democracy and Development
Industrial Relations and European State Traditions
Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice
Extra-representational types of political participation and models of trade unionism
Fiction Works
Early Socialism in Canada
Institutions and Democratic Citizenship
State and Revolution in Finland
Class Formation, Politics, and Institutions
Inequality and Democratization
The Origins of Urban Political Machines in the United States
Social democracy transformed? Party change and union ties
Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Analytical Induction
Between social democracy and communism
Middle Class and Its Attitude Toward Government in Different Political Systems
Race, class, or both? Responses to candidate characteristics in Canada, the UK, and the US
Postmaterialism in Unresponsive Political Systems
Contemporary Approaches to Social Democracy
Devine intervention? Lessons in systemic retrenchment from Canada’s most generous welfare state
Applying Classical Theory in a Comparative Study of the Information Revolution in the Less Developed World
Le travail et la question sociale au Maghreb et au Moyen-Orient
The welfare state and trade unions in Switzerland
The Burdens of Urban History
A Swedish Welfare State in North America? The Creation and Expansion of the Saskatchewan Welfare State, 1944–1982
Political attitudes of Italian workers
The Electoral Effectiveness of Party Organization
Divergent Outcomes of Labor Reform Politics in Democratized Korea and Taiwan
Economic Determinants of Voting in an Era of Union Decline
Labor History symposium
The impossible transition from ‘absolute monarchy’ toward industrial democracy in France
Strike Success and Union Ideology
The Siamese Twins
Radical Social Movements in Western Europe
Social Foundations of Political Order in Interwar Europe
Friendships Moderate an Association between a Dopamine Gene Variant and Political Ideology
State Structure and Variations in Corporatism
Social Democratic Party Formation and National Variation in Labor Politics
Conditions of Democracy in Interwar Europe
Continuidad y cambios en una vieja democracia de partidos
Oportunidades y peligros del pluralismo sindical en el Chile post-transición
Testing for a Critical Juncture
Class formation and capitalism. A second look at a classic
Toward a Historical Sociology of Working-Class Formation
Normalizing and Resisting the New Precarity
Republican Socialism and the Making of the Working Class in Britain, France, and the United States
Citizens All? Citizens Some! The Making of the Citizen
State-Society Relations and the Discourses and Activities of the 1989 Beijing Student Movement
Rational Sources of Chaos in Democratic Transition
How to Study Class Consciousness, And Why We Should
Neither Exceptional nor Peculiar
A Defense of Participatory Democracy
Labor in American Politics--Its Current Weakness
Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted
Two Nations
Elite Ideology and Risk Perception in Nuclear Energy Policy
Emprise des diplômes, jugements de justice et cohésion sociale
Explaining Revolutions in the Contemporary Third World
Why Political Science Needs History
Predictably exceptional
Le cas de l'Allemagne
Protest Avoidance
Does Labor Matter? Institutions, Labor Unions and Pension Reform in France and the United States
Feudal Law
Labour Politics and Democratic Transition in South Korea and Taiwan
Labour and left-wing parties’ programmatic orientations
Who would vote Nota? Explaining a ‘none of the above’ choice in eight countries
The impact of class on political attitudes
The ontological core of political radicalism. Exploring the role of antagonist, dogmatic, and populist beliefs in structuring radical ideologies
Seymour Martin Lipset and political sociology1
The Puzzle of Indian Politics
Labor Unions, Political Representation, and Economic Inequality
Complicit States and the Governing Strategy of Privilege Violence
Formal Organization and the Fate of Social Movements
Radicalism or Reformism? Socialist Parties before World War I
Marxism and Secular Faith
Historical Knowledge and Quantitative Analysis
Politics, Institutions, and Welfare Spending in Industrialized Democracies, 1960-82
Cultural Images of Labor Conflict and Coordination
How Do Political Opportunities Matter for Social Movements
Electoral Behavior
Citizens, elections, parties
Politics and social structure.
Socialism Since Marx
Essays in Economic Sociology
Making of the English Working Class
Political oppositions in western democracies
Liberal Tradition in America
Nationalism and national development.
Political man
Political parties and political development
Citizenship and Social Class
Political Parties in Western Democracies
Division and Cohesion in Democracy
A History of Socialist Thought
Socialism
The Outlawed Party
Why is there no Socialism in the United States?
The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism
Why is there no Socialism in the United States
Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat
The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society
On the Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
Ideology and Utopia
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
The Transformation of Austrian Socialism
The Institutions of Advanced Societies
Three Frontiers
Social Mobility in a Nineteenth-Century European City
Switzerland
Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat
Comparative Labor Movements
The Politics of Accommodation
Unity and Diversity in European Labor
Ideology and utopia
Gesammelte politische Schriften
Political representationand elections in Britain
A Theory of Government Formation
Post-Industrial Society
The Radical Tradition in Australia
The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany
The Institutions of Advanced Societies
American Communism and Soviet Russia
The Liberal Tradition in America
Challenge to Power
The Politics of Equality
Comparative Labor Movements
Labor in Finland
Challenge to Power
The Australian Legend
| Unique citing works | 92 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,24 |
| Citation span | 1985 - 2025 (41) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 92 |