Labour History News Archive

Labour History News

Labour Movements: Old and New?

UK Political Studies Association
Labour Movements Group Conference
University of Salford
Friday 4 July 2003
EUROPEAN STUDIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Centre for Contemporary History and Politics
University of Salford, Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4WT

Conference Organiser: Professor Steven Fielding

Call for Papers

The fourth conference of the PSA Labour Movements Group invites papers based on the question 'Labour Movements: Old and New?'. This is because it is widely believed that trade unions and social democratic parties are currently confronted by novel problems in a radically transformed international and domestic social, economic and political context. New Labour has made much of such a claim to justify its present course, but so have many other left of centre parties in advanced industrial countries such as Australia, Germany, France and Sweden. Academics have, moreover, been active in both criticising and elaborating this stress on novelty - and have advanced compelling arguments on the need for national labour movements to either adapt or remain true to their established character.

Accordingly, the conference invites discussion around the following themes:

What are the changes in society, cultural values, political behaviour, and international or domestic political economy which either demand change or consistency from left parties and trade unions?
What is either new and significant in contemporary social democracy and trade unionism or what are the main lines of continuity?
How and with what success have labour movements responded to change, both real and imagined?
What are the main variations or common patterns between national experiences in respect of the foregoing questions?
What can we learn from comparing the supposedly old and new labour movements within and between different countries?
What methodological problems and issues emerge in attempts to answer these, and related, questions by historians, political scientists, and social theorists?

Offers of papers should be sent to both Professor John Callaghan (Wolverhampton) J.Callaghan@wlv.ac.uk and Professor Steven Fielding (Salford) S.J.Fielding@salford.ac.uk.

Closing date: Tuesday 31 December 2002