Misunderstanding the reasons for an electoral victory is something that plagues both campaigns and the media. Too often, the victory is attributed to the wrong or overly complex reasons. This surface level analysis is deliberately designed to contrast with the hot-takes that will inevitably follow in the aftermath of the election result. The primary reasons …
Category Archives: Party Politics
Political Machines & unscaling
The political “machine” is one of the most mythological forces in elective campaigns. They were influential for generations in cities whose mayors and leaders handed out jobs and contracts through patronage that enforced partisan outcomes…But those big-city machines lost much of their mojo in the last decade as politics flattened and a band of new …
Jamaal Bowman & the Political Disruption Model
Bowman’s primary contest for NY-16 provides another opportunity to test the disruption model. There have been two recent events that have brought this race into prominence, with Bowman securing AOC’s endorsement and his opponent having a disastrous hot mic moment. Bowman has also benefited from a progressive opponent dropping out to endorse him. In terms …
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The right, adaption & the primary contradictions
Before (perhaps instead) of completing what was supposed to be a two-post commentary on the result of the general election in the UK, I felt it important to elaborate on something I mentioned in the first post. Having finally got around to reading Stuart Hall’s “The Great Moving Right Show”, I was struck by how …
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The UK general election 2019: What breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? (I)
The Labour decision to back a second referendum was a mistake from a campaigning perspective. As a campaign, it signalled the following to Leave voters. Labour could not be trusted and was a party of politics as usual. It reinforced the personal smearing on Corbyn as someone who could not be trusted. This article does …
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The Political Disruption Model v1
I’ve been working on a model of political disruption that covers challenges to mainstream parties and politics. This includes situations where the ultimate goal was achieved, as in the case of the Trump campaign or ones that have significantly shifted the political landscape, such as Corbyn with the Labour Party in the UK and Bernie Sanders …
Political candidates in Sri Lanka, #GE2017 aftermath
This is a typical example of the worthy but flawed thinking that so many people have about politics in Sri Lanka: Do we at least now not need to think beyond blind allegiance to a colour of a political party but select good, honest men and women with integrity to exercise our sovereign legislative, executive …
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Unscaling political parties and disintermediation
Unscaling was not a phrase I was familiar with in a political context, though the basic principle is certainly well known: conventional business paradigms are being disrupted by technology. To unscale refers to the specific act of “dismantling all large-scale, vertically integrated, mass-market institutions”. I have been writing about the disintermediation effect that we are …
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