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Contemporary Trotskyism: the resilience of social movements

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John Kelly, Professor of Industrial Relations at Birkbeck, discusses the social and political dynamics of Trotskyist organisations – the subject matter of his new book, Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain.

Almost eighty years after Leon Trotsky founded the Fourth International, there are now Trotskyist organisations in 57 countries, including most of Western Europe and Latin America. Yet no Trotskyist group has ever led a revolution, won a national election or built an enduring mass, political party. If the Trotskyist movement has been so unsuccessful, then how can we account for its remarkable resilience?

The book argues that to understand and explain the development, resilience and influence of Trotskyist groups, we need to analyse them as hybrid bodies that comprise elements of three different types of organisation: the political party, the sect and the social movement. It is the properties of these three facets of organisation and the interplay between them that give rise to the most characteristic features of the Trotskyist movement: frenetic activity, rampant divisions, inter-organisational hostility, authoritarian and charismatic leadership, high membership turnover and ideological rigidity.

As political parties, Trotskyist groups have always been small, never exceeding a membership of 10,000, and their vote shares in general and European elections have been derisory, rarely exceeding one percent. Yet Trotskyist groups are distinct from mainstream parties because in addition to their search for votes, office and policy implementation, they are also sects. This means they are powerfully wedded to the defence of Trotskyist doctrine, a core set of taken-for-granted beliefs that guide their actions and which are considered to provide the blueprint for ultimate political success. Trotskyist doctrine, like religious doctrine, appears in many different forms and struggles over the proper interpretation of Trotskyist and Leninist texts have splintered the movement into seven competing families.

Yet against this record of failure and division, Trotskyist groups have been assiduous in building a number of broad-based and successful social movements, to campaign on single issues. The Anti-Nazi League, created in the 1970s by the Socialist Workers Party, made a significant contribution to the electoral demise of the far right in that decade, whilst the Anti-Poll Tax Federation, created by the Militant Tendency in the late 1980s, helped destroy that Conservative government tax in the early 1990s.

These isolated success stories provide one element in the explanation of Trotskyist resilience, but an equally important factor is their astonishing efficiency in raising funds and building organisational capacity. The income per capita raised by Trotskyist groups from their members is around ten times greater than that of mainstream parties, an extraordinary achievement that allows them to employ large numbers of staff and to publish a wide range of newspapers, magazines and books. These organisational resources enable them to wield a public presence, on demonstrations and marches for example, out of all proportion to their tiny numbers. The same resources, coupled with their vigorous and uncompromising anti-capitalist message, allows them to recruit hundreds of young people each year, many of whom however quit after a short period.

Drawing on extensive archival research, as well as interviews with many of the leading protagonists and activists within the Trotskyist milieu, this is the first major study for thirty years of this small but vocal movement.

Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain is available from Routledge.

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The insecurity cycle

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Sue Konzelmann, Reader in Birkbeck’s Department of Management and Founding Director of the London Centre for Corporate Governance and Ethics, discusses the ‘Insecurity Cycle’ – the subject matter of her new book, Labour, Finance and Inequality: The Insecurity Cycle in British Public Policy, co-authored with Simon Deakin, Marc Fovargue-Davies and Frank Wilkinson.

In the aftermath of the most serious financial and economic crises since the Great Depression, the question of why policy doesn’t always change when it looks like it ought to has been a regular topic of debate. This has been especially true of Britain, where the combination of the lack of a fixed, written constitution and the nature of its political and institutional system, in theory at least, make it more prone to change than much of the rest of Europe.

Examination of the major shifts in policy that have taken place since the dawn of industrial capitalism reveals an ‘insecurity cycle’ at work. This policy cycle results from opposing interest groups – working classes on the one side and capitalists on the other – applying pressure on policy-makers to shift the focus of policy towards the support of their own viewpoint and interests.

The insecurity cycle

Following periods of market liberalisation, in response to the resulting insecurity associated with rising unemployment, poverty and inequality, those affected can be expected to put pressure on policy-makers for social intervention and protection. However, this soon triggers a counter-response by capital and those in upper segments of the distribution of income & wealth – pressuring policy-makers to scale back social protections and liberalize markets. The perceived ‘zero-sum’ nature of this ongoing contest usually means that a gain for one side is seen as a loss by the other – resulting in a continuation of the cycle.

It is not, however, a contest of equals. Historically, the significant asymmetry of power between the forces of free-market capitalism and those of the social welfare state has meant that movement towards social interventionism has typically been long and drawn out, whilst shifts towards market liberalization have been relatively abrupt.

Winds of change

Our research on the dynamics of major policy shifts – from the industrial revolution to the present – suggests that four main factors produce the conditions for change. These include:

1) Crisis – usually of considerable duration; but such a ‘chronic’ crisis may be exacerbated by shorter, ‘acute’ crises.

2.) Democratic pressure, often at its greatest during elections, can also be highly influential in between. Over the years, it has resulted in the emergence of trade unions, pressure for expansion of the franchise and, more recently, socially based movements – such as Momentum – on the social welfare side of the insecurity cycle. But not all democratic pressure is on this side of the cycle, with the 1978-79 ‘winter of discontent’ producing a tide that swept Margaret Thatcher into office – and illustrating the two remaining factors:

3) New – or different – policy ideas; and

4) Credible political backing. Both of these were present in 1979, adding to both the chronic crisis of the 1970s, generally, and the acute crisis of the winter of discontent.

Combined with the resulting democratic pressure, change was almost as inevitable in 1979 as it had been less than four decades earlier, with the combination of the chronic crisis of the interwar years, the acute crisis of World War Two, the new ideas of John Maynard Keynes and the Labour Party, plus a highly ‘electable socialist’ in the form of Clement Attlee in 1945. The policy changes implemented after the elections of Attlee and Thatcher represent the two complete turns of the insecurity cycle so far, with the move to the left taking over 150 years to come about, and that to the right a scant 35. There have, however, also been many smaller shifts, that could be accommodated within the existing policy paradigm.

Axis of anger

The insecurity cycle is also a useful way to help make sense of events both in Europe and on the other side of the Atlantic. This is a policy cycle that is not primarily driven by numbers and data, so much as by feelings of unfairness, hopelessness, and in some cases, anger and fear. As the Brexit campaign revealed, such feelings are difficult to dissipate by politicians citing indicators such as GDP or ‘happiness’ coefficients in defence of the status quo, rather than implementing substantive changes in policy. From this perspective, the sharp polarization between support for the UK’s continued membership of the European Union, and those who feel it is damaging, as well as that between President Trump’s supporters in the US, and those who feel that they’ve lost out as a result of globalization, begin to make considerably more sense.

Is the insecurity cycle an inevitable part of policy-making? Perhaps – and if both sides continue to see it as a zero-sum game, almost certainly. However, what if the relationship between labour, finance and the social welfare state could be fundamentally changed? Continued technological change, as well as expanding populations – both in a context of finite resources – would suggest an uncomfortable intensification of the insecurity cycle if this is not at least attempted.

The links between social movements like Momentum in the UK, and Our Revolution, which has grown out of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in the US, offer the intriguing possibility that politicians like Jeremy Corbyn and Sanders – who are articulating an alternative vision of society and politics – may produce an axis as influential as that of Reagan and Thatcher during the 1980s. This, of course, would also mark a third complete movement in the insecurity cycle.

Labour, Finance and Inequality: The Insecurity Cycle in British Public Policy is available from Routledge. 

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Crime and global justice: the dynamics of international punishment

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Daniele Archibugi, Professor of Innovation, Governance and Public Policy at Birkbeck, and Alice Pease, a researcher working on a modern slavery campaign, discuss a new system of global criminal justice which has emerged over the last quarter of a century, and which they have written about further in their new book.

The Hague, International Criminal Court

International criminal justice is still sailing in uncharted waters. At the end of 2017, after 24 years of activity, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) closed its doors after handing Ratko Mladić a life sentence and the spectacular live suicide of Slobodan Praljak. In 2018 we will celebrate – with little enthusiasm – the twentieth anniversary of the International Criminal Court. The great hopes that impunity of governors would have been contrasted by an emerging global justice have faded away. Where are we at? Our book tries to outline the strengths and weaknesses of the new international criminal justice system which emerged at the end of the Cold War, to identify its connection with the post-World War II tribunals established at Nuremberg and Tokyo and to explore how it could further help to protect human rights in the changing political contours of the twenty-first century.

Is international criminal justice an effective tool to prevent atrocities and to hold powerful politicians accountable? An assessment of what has, so far, been delivered by international criminal justice is highly unsatisfactory. Those indicted at the bar often appear to be mere scapegoats and seldom have the trials effectively contributed to reconciliation in areas devastated by civil wars. More seriously, some of these trials have been shows of power used by wars’ winners to discipline their opponents.

Is this motive enough to abandon altogether the idea of a supranational system of criminal justice? This is the core question addressed in our new book, Crime and Global Justice. Even if, so far, it has been highly selective, all the defendants judged by international trials have committed atrocious crimes. It is certainly true that many authors of international crimes are still at large, and far too many have not been targeted at all by any investigation. But the fact that the international judicial system is not able to incriminate all culprits is no justification for letting them all off the hook.

Saddam Hussein, who was hanged in 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity.

While much of the existing literature has addressed the issue by exploring the potentials of the judicial devices available, we have approached it from a different perspective, namely to look at a few spectacular trials with very different outcomes. We have tried to show that the incrimination of Augusto Pinochet by a Spanish judge helped Chilean society to face up to its own past. Judging Slobodan Milošević while ignoring the war crimes committed by NATO in its war versus Serbia showed instead how biased international justice could be. The conviction of Radovan Karadžić gave at least some solace to the victims of the civil war in the Balkans. The hanging of Saddam Hussein led to an explosion of sectarian violence in Iraq as well as in neighbouring countries and almost succeeded in transforming one of the most brutal dictators of the twentieth century into a martyr. The fact that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, after two warrants of arrests were issued in 2009 and 2010, is still firmly in control of Sudan has seriously discredited international justice.

We argue that so long as international criminal tribunals continue to operate in an inter-governmental logic, it will hardly be able to deliver its promises. Governments are providing the budget, selecting the judges, even providing the prisons for the few convicted and this seriously hampers the independence of the judicial power. The hope of a genuinely impartial judiciary will, therefore, rest on the ability of civil society around the world to pressure the official institutions through opinion tribunals, independent investigations, and by carefully watching the proceedings of the International Criminal Court.

The book makes ample reference to films and novels that have been inspired by controversies associated with the global criminal justice system. We hope very much that this wealth of non-academic sources will motivate students to engage with the question of global criminal accountability.

Crime and Global Justice: The Dynamics of International Punishment is available from Polity. 

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What drives efficiency in knowledge transfer?

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Dr Federica Rossi, lecturer in business economics discusses increasing expectations on universities to demonstrate the positive economic and social impacts of their activities, and her research into measuring the efficiency of their efforts. 

Knowledge transfer is a term used to encompass a broad range of activities to support mutually beneficial collaborations between universities, businesses and the public sector. In the face of demands from funding bodies and ultimately taxpayers, universities all over the world are increasingly expected to demonstrate that their activities have a positive economic and social impact. Direct knowledge transfer to businesses, governments and society in general allows universities to make a visible contribution outside the ‘ivory tower’ of academia and can also help them to raise additional funds.

Measuring efficiency

Since knowledge transfer has become as important as a university’s longstanding commitment to teaching and research, the question of how well they perform this mission has gained prominence. Most universities attempt to measure performance in knowledge transfer, but focus on a quantity of outputs rather than the quality or efficiency. Even studies that measure efficiency tend to focus on a limited set of knowledge transfer activities, like technology through the commercialisation of patent licenses, creation of spin-out companies or research contracting with industry.

However, universities fulfil their knowledge transfer mission through many other activities, which include delivering knowledge-intensive services such as consultancies, clinical tests, prototypes and professional development courses, engaging in informal networks and staff exchanges with industry, contributing to community regeneration programmes and engaging with the public through different media.

Findings

The efficiency of 97 universities in the United Kingdom was measured for a range of knowledge transfer activities: research contracts, consultancies, professional development courses, generation of intellectual property and public engagement. Compared with a restrictive definition of knowledge transfer that only includes research contracts and intellectual property, this broader approach produces a different ranking for the most efficient universities: more universities achieve efficiency, and the distribution of efficiency scores is less skewed.

The universities that increase their efficiency when a broader definition of knowledge transfer is used have a lower share of staff in medicine and natural sciences and a higher share of staff in the arts and humanities; they are less likely to have a university hospital, and are more teaching-intensive. By adopting a broader approach to measuring knowledge transfer, some universities that are less research-oriented and less focused on science and medicine can better demonstrate their efficiency. More efficient institutions have a larger amount of staff and students; they are older, but have a more recently established knowledge transfer office; and they are specialised in a few subject areas (although some diversified universities are also efficient). Research, teaching intensity, and geographical location do not have a significant effect on efficiency.

Implications

The findings suggest that universities with different production models can be equally efficient in generating knowledge transfer outputs, and that research intensity is not a prerequisite for efficiency. Universities can achieve efficiency by adopting a model of knowledge transfer engagement that is consistent with their resources, without needing to replicate the knowledge transfer strategies of prominent institutions whose resources may be very different. By improving their reputation for excellence in specific activities that best fit the institution’s resources, universities may increase their ability to generate further knowledge transfer outputs. In fact, institutional reputation appears to increase knowledge transfer opportunities, with more reputable older, larger and diversified institutions achieving greater efficiency.

Another implication of the findings is that, rather than having an established Knowledge Transfer Office (KTO), what affects efficiency are its practices and policies, and the professionalism of its staff. KTOs therefore need to invest in staff training and in the development of best practices. Developing specialised, subject-specific skills and structures to support knowledge transfer, rather than generic ones may also pay off.

While performance is often measured by looking at outputs, thinking about performance in terms of efficiency helps us recognise that universities work with very different resources, which affects the nature of their knowledge transfer engagement. Changes in the resources available to universities, through potential changes in the rules governing the allocation of public funds, will also change their ability to engage in knowledge transfer.

Policymakers need to think systematically about the effect of changes in funding for research and teaching (for example, the replacement of recurrent grants with competitive funding) on a university’s ability to engage in knowledge transfer. The relationship between funding sources and knowledge transfer strategies, which has been largely unexplored to date, would merit greater attention from both researchers and policymakers.

The detailed empirical analysis on which these results build is presented in:

Rossi, F. (2017) The drivers of efficient knowledge transfer performance: evidence from British universities, Cambridge Journal of Economics.

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