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Introduction: Being Progressive

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The Language of Progressive Politics in Modern Britain

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Abstract

Robinson outlines the peculiar nature of the term ‘progressive’ and the role it has played in modern British politics. She argues that its claim to anticipate the future functions as a political argument in itself: to be on the ‘right side of history’ is to be necessarily in the right. This gives the word a particular moral authority. Robinson examines the ways in which the term has been used by campaigners for women’s rights, gay liberation, and racial equality, but notes that it has also worked against such causes by perpetuating a view of ‘progress’ rooted in nineteenth-century models of racial hierarchies, linear development, and rational masculinity. She concludes by considering the relationship of the term ‘progressive’ to ‘modernity’, ‘modernisation’, and ‘liberalism’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Emily Robinson

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  1. Emily Robinson
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Robinson, E. (2017). Introduction: Being Progressive. In: The Language of Progressive Politics in Modern Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50664-1_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50664-1_1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-50661-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-50664-1

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