Europe?s Radical Left: From Marginality to the Mainstream?

Although the most pernicious consequences of the crisis have apparently abated, the long-term political repercussions remain unclear. Whereas most attention has focused on the right-wing populist parties, the rejuvenation of the left is an unwritten story of post-crisis politics.

This volume addresses this story, with three principal aims:
to examine the radical left intellectual response to the crisis, i.e. how actors conceptualise the causes of crisis and its consequences; to examine the radical left electoral response to the crisis, i.e. how the crisis has aided or weakened the electoral success of radical left parties and movements; to examine organisational responses, i.e. whether the crisis has resulted in new party structures, methods of organising, and internal party tendencies. The result is a comprehensive compendium, drawing on cutting-edge research from leading European experts to present the first comparative analysis of how the far left of the political spectrum has responded to the crisis. It furthers our understanding both of the dynamics of European party systems and the wider consequences of the Great Recession.

Luke March is Professor of Post-Soviet and Comparative Politics at the University of Edinburgh. He is author of The Communist Party in Post-Soviet Russia (Manchester University Press, 2002), Radical Left Parties in Europe (Routledge, 2011) and The European Left Party: A Case Study in Transnational Party Building, with Richard Dunphy, (Manchester University Press, 2015).

Daniel Keith is Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of York. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the role of organisational factors in shaping the diverse programmatic adaptation of West European Communist parties and their successor parties. He has published articles on the Portuguese Communist Party and the Socialist Party and Green Left in the Netherlands.