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Palgrave Macmillan

The Rise of Lifestyle Activism

From New Left to Occupy

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Nikos Sotirakopoulos

    1. Loughborough University, United Kingdom

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  • Provides an innovative analysis of the evolution of movement politics from activism for social change of the New Left to modern day mobilisations
  • Uses a wide variety of case studies from the 1960s to the present day
  • Includes original interviews with Occupy protesters

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction

    • Nikos Sotirakopoulos
    Pages 1-16

  3. From the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to Woodstock

    • Nikos Sotirakopoulos
    Pages 17-60

  4. The 1970s and Beyond: A Counter-Revolution of Capitalism or the New Left Fears Going Mainstream?

    • Nikos Sotirakopoulos
    Pages 61-86

  5. De-Universalizing Political Subjects: Neo-Tribes and New Forms of Action

    • Nikos Sotirakopoulos
    Pages 87-103

  6. Linking Two Eras: The Anti-globalization Movement

    • Nikos Sotirakopoulos
    Pages 105-126

  7. From Lifestyle Activism to Left-Wing Populism: The New Left in Times of Crisis

    • Nikos Sotirakopoulos
    Pages 127-163

  8. Conclusion: Conundrums and Opportunities for the Left

    • Nikos Sotirakopoulos
    Pages 165-180

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 181-184
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores changes in the values and ideas of a large part of the political Left in recent decades. The author identifies that a questioning of the merits of economic growth; an ideal of environmental sustainability overriding the old radical visions of material abundance; a critique of instrumental reason; a suspiciousness towards universalist claims; and an attachment to subjective and pluralistic identities, have been dominant in the narratives of the Leftist milieu and of social movements. 

Yet the author suggests that such changes, known as ‘lifestyle activism’, could be understood in a different way, one characterised by suspiciousness towards the belief that human action guided by reason can lead society towards a future that will be better and more affluent. Using a range of case studies from the 1960's to the present day anti-austerity movement, Sotirakopoulos  argues that the New Left and its ideological heirs could be understood not so much as a continuation, but as an inversion from the Old Left and, most importantly, from humanistic visions of modernity. 

The book will therefore be ideal reading for students and researchers of political sociology, radical politics, modern political ideologies, contentious politics and political theory and to  scholars of new social movements and the New Left.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Loughborough University, United Kingdom

    Nikos Sotirakopoulos

About the author

Nikos Sotirakopoulos is lecturer in Sociology at the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University, UK.

 

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