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Articles on Political history

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A demonstrator holds a placard reading “Macron, no no no no, 49,3 times no”, a reference to a French law that would allow the country’s president to pass pension reform without a vote in the National Assembly. Christophe Simon/AFP

Debate: The forward march of labour restarts with historic strikes in France and the UK

While the scale of the strikes in both countries is historic, a scholar in employer relations notes the legislative conditions framing industrial action in the UK are much more restrictive.
Protesters wave French trade union CGT flags during a rally called by French trade unions against the government pension reform plan in Marseille, southern France, on January 19, 2023. Nicolas Tucat/AFP

Pension reform in France: Macron and demonstrators resume epic tussle begun over 30 years ago

French citizens have protested pension reform for the past 30 years. A historian explains why the evolving power struggle between the streets and the state does not bode well for today’s strikers.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, heads the closing session of the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Joseph Eid/AFP

Is liberal governance unable to deal with global threats?

The absence of norms defining the common good and the insufficient place of scientific arguments in the democratic debate weaken the capacity of liberalism to face global threats.
‘Peace for our time’: British prime minister Neville Chamberlain displaying the Anglo-German declaration, known as the Munich Agreement, in September 1938. Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images

Are we learning the wrong lessons from history?

Oversimplified versions of the past lead to bad political decisions.
A 1973 photo shows an estimated 5,000 people, women and men, marching around the Minnesota Capitol building protesting the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. AP Photo

Many anti-abortion activists before Roe were liberals who were inspired by 20th-century Catholic social teaching

A historian explains why the pre-Roe anti-abortion movement was filled with liberal Democrats who opposed the Vietnam War and supported the expansion of the welfare state.

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