Socialism
Socialist Law
The inclusion of “Socialist law”, in the past, was unavoidable in certain legal classifications. Marxist-Leninist thought still plays a sometimes significant role in the legal organization of certain countries. The criterion which governed the creation of a category of “Socialist law”, as opposed to western law, was a material one.
Socialism Across the World
Introduction to Socialism
Strong socialist or labor parties have remained largely confined to Europe and to countries whose population is or was of mainly European extraction, such as Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. The Social Democratic Party of Japan was out of power from the end of World War II until 1993, when it briefly led a governing coalition. Indonesia had a relatively strong left, after gaining independence from the Netherlands. However, after a 1965 military takeover led by Suharto, the army in Indonesia persecuted Communists and socialists alike, effectively annihilating them. No socialist tradition remained to take advantage of Indonesia’s return to democracy in the 1990s.
In Latin America only Chile produced a significant socialist party. That party was strong enough to survive underground after a military takeover in Chile in 1973 and be elected to power in 2000, some years after the end of the military dictatorship. After years of military dominance, Brazil elected a social democrat, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, as president in 1994. However, his administration veered between neoliberalism and social reforms, placing his social-democratic credentials in dispute. His more radical successor, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, generally known as Lula, won the presidential election in 2002 at the head of a recently created Workers’ Party.
Elsewhere socialism has usually been a local variant of Communism. In Asia and much of Africa socialism was an ideology advocating modernization by the state, rather than an outright anticapitalist doctrine. Socialist ideas greatly influenced independence and anticolonialist movements, notably the National Congress Party in India and the African National Congress in South Africa. These ideas also influenced postcolonial regimes, including those in power in Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. When in power, African socialist parties concentrated on nation-building and social reform, often at the expense of democratic rule and civil rights. The ideas of social democracy also influenced many parties in economically advanced parts of eastern Asia, especially in the wake of an economic crisis that hit the area in the late 1990s. Leaders made an appeal to ill-defined “Asian values” to justify proposing control over free markets in ways that are reminiscent of social democracy. Notable examples are Kim Dae Jung, elected president in South Korea in 1998, and Chen Shui-bian, elected president in Taiwan in 2000. ” (1)
Socialism
In relation to the socialism and constitutional law, Fernando Muñoz[1] made the following observation: Socialism is an eminently political, rather than juridical, phenomenon. In that sense, it might seem extraneous to include a discussion of socialism within an Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law. However, socialism, as a theoretical and political tradition of critical—and often conflictive—engagement with state institutions, constitutes an important force that has influenced and shaped the evolution of the modern democratic constitutional state. Furthermore, during the historical period baptized by Eric Hobsbawm as the ‘short’ twentieth century, more (…)
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- Legal System
- Country
- Jurisdiction
- Immigration
- Consulate
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Notes and References
- Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law, Fernando Muñoz, “Socialism” (2018, Germany, United Kingdom)
See Also
- Private property
- Right to property
- Authoritarianism
- Liberalism
- Libertarianism
- Socialism
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See Also
- Social Democracy
- New Democratic Party
- Autocracy
- Republicanism History
- Communism
Notes and References
- Information about Socialism in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
Guide to Socialism
Hierarchical Display of Socialism
Politics > Political framework > Political ideology
Politics > Political party > Political parties > Socialist Party
Socialism
Concept of Socialism
See the dictionary definition of Socialism.
Characteristics of Socialism
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Translation of Socialism
- Spanish: Socialismo
- French: Socialisme
- German: Sozialismus
- Italian: Socialismo
- Portuguese: Socialismo
- Polish: Socjalizm
Thesaurus of Socialism
Politics > Political framework > Political ideology > Socialism
Politics > Political party > Political parties > Socialist Party > Socialism
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