The National in the Network Society: UK Uncut, the English Defence League and the Challenge for Social Democracy

Abstract

Social democracy, as embodied in the institutions created in the post-war settlement, is on the brink of collapse. As Social Democratic Parties struggle to re-imagine themselves after a string of electoral defeats across Europe, unrestrained neoliberalism is consolidating its hold on power. This moment of political vacuum on the left is leaving Europe-wide austerity measures almost unopposed by the political mainstream. But it is also taking place at a time when the power of new technologies to facilitate dissent and make demands for democratic representation can no longer be dismissed as faddish. From Barack Obama’s unlikely presidential nomination to the recent revolutionary waves in the Middle East, new social networking tools are having palpable effects within the formal political sphere. And new forms of popular movements, which we term ‘identity networks’ — like the Tea Party in the USA and the student opposition to fee rises in the UK — are wielding power in ways to which formal political structures are struggling to respond. This chapter seeks to describe these shifts in the possibilities of collective action and to propose the beginnings of a new relationship between Social Democratic Parties and the emerging ‘identity networks’ of the left, through a reclamation of the discourse of the nation.