Escaping the traditional focus on Paris, the author examines the divergent political identities of two occupational groups in Lyon, metal and silk workers, who, despite having lived and worked in the same city, developed different patterns of political practices and bore distinct political identities. This book also examines in detail the way that gender relations influenced industrial change, skill, and political identity. Combining empirical data collected in French archives with social science theory and methods, this study argues that political identities were shaped by the intersection of the prevailing political climate with the social relations surrounding work in specific industrial settings.

Unlike many social movements, the gay and lesbian struggle for visibility and rights has succeeded in combining a unified group identity with the celebration of individual differences. Forging Gay Identities explores how this happened, tracing the evolution of gay life and organizations in San Francisco from the 1950s to the mid-1990s.

Presents the experiences of two burgeoning cities and the Irish people that helped to establish what it is 'to be Irish' within them

Showcases a range of empirical studies that highlight the potential, inclusivity, and durability of the strategic narrative approach to International Relations

As we enter the twenty-first century, scholars, activists, and others concerned with social change increasingly realize that in order to transform society effective coalitions among different groups working for social justice need to be created and maintained. This anthology challenges dominant approaches of explaining social movements and coalition building.

The important political motivations behind why women finally won the right to vote In the 1880s, women were barred from voting in all national-level elections, but by 1920 they were going to the polls in nearly thirty countries. What caused this massive change? Why did male politicians agree to extend voting rights to women? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was not because of progressive ideas about women or suffragists’ pluck. In most countries, elected politicians fiercely resisted enfranchising women, preferring to extend such rights only when it seemed electorally prudent and in fact necessary to do so. Through a careful examination of the tumultuous path to women’s political inclusion in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, Forging the Franchise demonstrates that the formation of a broad movement across social divides, and strategic alliances with political parties in competitive electoral conditions, provided the leverage that ultimately transformed women into voters. As Dawn Teele shows, in competitive environments, politicians had incentives to seek out new sources of electoral influence. A broad-based suffrage movement could reinforce those incentives by providing information about women’s preferences, and an infrastructure with which to mobilize future female voters. At the same time that politicians wanted to enfranchise women who were likely to support their party, suffragists also wanted to enfranchise women whose political preferences were similar to theirs. In contexts where political rifts were too deep, suffragists who were in favor of the vote in principle mobilized against their own political emancipation. Exploring tensions between elected leaders and suffragists and the uncertainty surrounding women as an electoral group, Forging the Franchise sheds new light on the strategic reasons behind women’s enfranchisement.

Democracy in Europe has been a recent phenomenon. Only in the wake of World War II were democratic frameworks secured, and, even then, it was decades before democracy truly blanketed the continent. Neither given nor granted, democracy requires conflict, often violent confrontations, and challenges to the established political order. In Europe, Geoff Eley convincingly shows, democracy did not evolve organically out of a natural consensus, the achievement of prosperity, or the negative cement of the Cold War. Rather, it was painstakingly crafted, continually expanded, and doggedly defended by varying constellations of socialist, feminist, Communist, and other radical movements that originally blossomed in the later nineteenth century. Parties of the Left championed democracy in the revolutionary crisis after World War I, salvaged it against the threat of fascism, and renewed its growth after 1945. They organized civil societies rooted in egalitarian ideals which came to form the very fiber of Europe's current democratic traditions. The trajectories of European democracy and the history of the European Left are thus inextricably bound together. Geoff Eley has given us the first truly comprehensive history of the European Left--its successes and failures; its high watermarks and its low tides; its accomplishments, insufficiencies, and excesses; and, most importantly, its formative, lasting influence on the European political landscape. At a time when the Left's influence and legitimacy are frequently called into question, Forging Democracy passionately upholds its vital contribution.

Explores how Hispanic American thinkers in Latin America and Latino/a philosophers in the USA have posed and thought about questions of race, ethnicity, and nationality.

In Forging Arizona Anita Huizar-Hernández looks back at a bizarre nineteenth-century land grant scheme that tests the limits of how ideas about race, citizenship, and national expansion are forged. An important addition to extant scholarship on the U.S. Southwest, this book recovers a forgotten case that reminds readers that the borders that divide are only as stable as the narratives that define them.

"Controversial, entertaining and alarmingly topical ... a delight to read."Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph