Utopianism in the 2019 Labour Campaign and Manifesto: Investigating an Anomalous Moment in Contemporary British Party Politics

该项目将探讨2019年工党的竞选活动和宣言，重点关注这场竞选活动是英国社会和政治中的一个乌托邦时刻，明确着眼于一个不同的、更美好的未来，重点是集体改革。这项研究将调查活动家如何理解这一时刻，以及它是如何被媒体和更广泛的公共领域框定和接受的。对工党积极分子、活动家和其他内部人士的半结构化采访将探索与后撒切尔时代这一不同寻常的政治转变相关的想法、动机和经验。对2019年《劳工宣言》以及相应的印刷和在线媒体报道进行的话语分析将使人们能够调查这些想法是如何以书面形式构思和表达的，以及它们是如何被更广泛的媒体和政界接受的。使用这些方法，这项研究将阐明围绕政治愿望表达的更广泛的问题，这些问题不符合新自由主义社会中既定的政治规范。该项目将受到莱维塔斯定义的乌托邦概念的启发，莱维塔斯强调过程以及对更好社会的持续渴望和信念。这项研究还将借鉴布朗关于新自由主义合理性的观点。它将建立和扩大关于新自由主义现状与21世纪初乌托邦项目可能性之间的关系的学术辩论，并在乌托邦研究中增加对主流政治运动的理解的定性和社会学维度。

This project will explore the 2019 Labour Party election campaign and manifesto, focusing on the campaign as a utopian moment in British society and politics that looked explicitly towards a different and better future, with an emphasis on collective reform. The study will investigate how campaigners understood this moment and how it was framed and received in the media and broader public sphere. Semi-structured interviews with Labour Party activists, campaigners,and other insiders will explore the ideas, motivations and experiences associated with this unusual political turn in the post- Thatcher era. Discourse analyses of the 2019 Labour Manifesto and corresponding print and online media coverage will enable an investigation of how these ideas were framed and articulated in writing, and how they were received in broader media and political circles. Using these methods the study will shed light on broader questions around articulations of political desire which do not conform to established political norms in a neoliberal society. The project will be informed by the concept of utopia defined by Levitas who emphasises process and the ongoing desire for, and belief in, a better society. The study will also draw on Brown's ideas about neoliberal rationality. It will build on and extend academic debates about the relationship between the neoliberal status quo and the possibilities for utopian projects in the early 21st century, and add a qualitative and sociological dimension to the understanding of mainstream political movements in utopian studies.