Radicalism (from French ) was a political movement representing the leftward flank of liberalism between the late 18th and early 20th century. Certain aspects of the movement were precursors to a wide variety of modern-day movements, ranging from laissez-faireG M Trevelyan, British History in the Nineteenth Century (London 1922) p. 183 to social liberalism, social democracy, civil libertarianism, and modern progressivism. This ideology is commonly referred to as "radicalism" but is sometimes referred to as radical liberalism, or classical radicalism, to distinguish it from radical politics. Its earliest beginnings are to be found during the English Civil War with the Levellers and later the Radical Whigs.
During the 19th century in the United Kingdom, continental Europe and Latin America, the term radical came to denote a progressive liberal ideology inspired by the French Revolution. Radicalism grew prominent during the 1830s in the United Kingdom with the Chartists and in Belgium with the Revolution of 1830, then across Europe in the 1840s–1850s during the Revolutions of 1848. In contrast to the social conservatism of existing liberal politics, radicalism sought political support for a radical reform of the electoral system to widen suffrage. It was also associated with a variety of ideologies and policies, such as liberalism, left-wing politics, direct democracy, republicanism, modernism, atheism, secularism, antimilitarism, civic nationalism, abolition of titles, rationalism, casual clothing, redistribution of wealth and property, and freedom of the press.
In 19th-century France, radicalism was originally the extreme left of the day, in contrast to the social-conservative liberalism of Moderate Republicans and Orléanist monarchists and the anti-parliamentarianism of the Legitimists and Bonapartists. Until the end of the century, radicals were not organised as a united political party, but they had rather become a significant force in parliament. In 1901, they consolidated their efforts by forming the country's first major extra-parliamentary political party, the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, which became the leading party of government during the second half of the French Third Republic (until 1940). The success of French Radicals encouraged radicals elsewhere to organize themselves into formal parties in a range of other countries in the late 19th and early 20th century, with radicals holding significant political office in Argentina (Radical Civic Union), Bulgaria (Radical Democratic Party), Denmark (), Germany (Progressive People's Party and German Democratic Party), Greece (New Party and Liberal Party), Italy (Republican Party, Radical Party, Social Democracy and Democratic Liberal Party), the Netherlands (Radical League and Free-thinking Democratic League), Portugal (Republican Party), Romania (National Liberal Party), Russia (Trudoviks), Serbia (People's Radical Party), Spain (Reformist Party, Radical Republican Party, Republican Action, Radical Socialist Republican Party and Republican Left), Sweden (Free-minded National Association, Liberal Party and Liberal People's Party), Switzerland (Free Democratic Party), and Turkey (Republican People's Party). During the interwar period, European radical parties organized the Radical Entente, their own political international.
Before socialism emerged as a mainstream political ideology, radicalism represented the left wing of liberalism and thus of the political spectrum. As social democrats came to dominate the centre-left in place of classical radicalism, they either re-positioned as conservative liberals or joined forces with social democrats. Thus, European radical parties split (as in Denmark, where undertook a conservative-liberal rebranding, while Radikale Venstre maintained the radical tradition as a coalition partner of the newly-dominant Social Democrats), took up a new orientation (as in France, where the Radical Party aligned with the centre-right, later causing the split of the Radical Party of the Left) or dissolved (as in Greece, where the heirs of Venizelism joined several parties, largely eventually finding their way to the social-democratic PASOK). After World War II, European radicals were largely extinguished as a major political force except in Denmark, France, Italy (Radical Party), and the Netherlands (Democrats 66). Latin America still retains a distinct indigenous radical tradition, for instance in Argentina (Radical Civic Union) and Chile (Radical Party).
Overview Radicalism and liberalism
The two Enlightenment philosophies of liberalism and radicalism both shared the goal of liberating humanity from the remnants of feudalism. However, liberals regarded it as sufficient to establish individual rights that would protect the individual while radicals sought institutional, social/economic, and especially cultural/educational reform to allow every citizen to put those rights into practice. For this reason, radicalism went beyond the demand for liberty by seeking also equality, i.e. universality as in Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.
In some countries, radicalism represented a minor wing within the Liberal political family, as in the case of England's Radical Whigs. Sometimes, the radical wing of the liberals were hardline or doctrinaire and in other cases more moderate and pragmatic. In other countries, radicalism had had enough electoral support on its own, or a favourable electoral system or coalition partners, to maintain distinct radical parties such as in Switzerland and Germany (Freisinn), Bulgaria, Denmark, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands,See for more information the section on Liberale und radikale Parteien in Klaus von Beyme: Parteien in westlichen Demokratien, München, 1982. but also Argentina (Radical Civic Union), Chile and Paraguay.Compare page 255 and further in the Guide to the Political Parties of South America (Pelican Books, 1973)
Victorian era Britain possessed both trends: In England the Radicals were simply the left wing of the Liberal coalition, though they often rebelled when the coalition's socially conservative Whigs resisted democratic reforms, whereas in Ireland Radicals lost faith in the ability of parliamentary gradualism to deliver egalitarian and democratic reform and, breaking away from the main body of liberals, pursued a radical-democratic parliamentary republic through separatism and insurrection. This does not mean that all radical parties were formed by left-wing liberals. In French political literature, it is normal to make a clear separation between Radicalism as a distinct political force to the left of Liberalism but to the right of Socialism. Over time, as new left-wing parties formed to address the new social issues, the right wing of the Radicals would splinter off in disagreement with the main Radical family and became absorbed as the left wing of the Liberal family—rather than the other way around, as in Britain and Belgium.
The distinction between Radicals and Liberals was made clear by the two mid-20th-century attempts to create an international for centrist democratic parties. In 1923–24, the French Radicals created an Entente Internationale des Partis Radicaux et des Partis Démocratiques similaires: it was joined by the centre-left Radical parties of Europe, and in the democracies where no equivalent existed—Britain and Belgium—the liberal party was allowed to attend instead. After the Second World War the Radical International was not reformed; instead, a centre-right Liberal International was established, closer to the conservative-liberalism of the British and Belgian Liberal parties.Internacional Liberal|Movimento Liberal Social – Liberalismo em Portugal , Social Liberal Movement official website.Internationale Libérale, Europe Politique | europe-politique.eu.See page 1 and further of A sense of liberty by Julie Smith, published by the Liberal International in 1997. This marked the end of Radicalism as an independent political force in Europe, though some countries such as France and Switzerland retained politically important Radical parties well into the 1950s–1960s. Many European parties that are nowadays categorised in the group of social-liberal parties have a historical affinity with radicalism and may therefore be called "liberal-radical".
By country United Kingdom
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the first use of the term radical in a political sense is generally ascribed to the English parliamentarian Charles James Fox, a leader of the left wing of the Whig party who dissented from the party's conservative-liberalism and looked favourably upon the radical reforms being undertaken by French republicans, such as universal male suffrage. In 1797, Fox declared for a "radical reform" of the electoral system. This led to a general use of the term to identify all supporting the movement for parliamentary reform. Jeremy Bentham is believed to have coined the specific noun "radicalism" in the autumn of 1819.
Initially confined to the upper and middle classes, in the early 19th century "popular radicals" brought artisans and the "labouring classes" into widespread agitation in the face of harsh government repression. More respectable "philosophical radicals" followed the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and strongly supported parliamentary reform, but were generally hostile to the arguments and tactics of the "popular radicals". By the middle of the century, parliamentary Radicals joined with others in the Parliament of the United Kingdom to form the Liberal Party, eventually achieving reform of the electoral system.
Origins The Radical movement had its beginnings at a time of tension between the American colonies and Great Britain, with the first Radicals, angry at the state of the House of Commons, drawing on the Leveller tradition and similarly demanding improved parliamentary representation. These earlier concepts of democratic and even egalitarian reform had emerged in the turmoil of the English Civil War and the brief establishment of the republican Commonwealth of England amongst the vague political grouping known as the Levellers, but with the English Restoration of the monarchy such ideas had been discredited. Although the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had increased parliamentary power with a constitutional monarchy and the union of the parliaments brought England and Scotland together, towards the end of the 18th century the monarch still had considerable influence over the Parliament of Great Britain which itself was dominated by the English aristocracy and by patronage. Candidates for the House of Commons stood as Whigs or Tories, but once elected formed shifting coalitions of interests rather than splitting along party lines. At general elections, the vote was restricted to property owners in constituencies which were out of date and did not reflect the growing importance of manufacturing towns or shifts of population, so that in many rotten borough seats could be bought or were controlled by rich landowners while major cities remained unrepresented. Discontent with these inequities inspired those individuals who later became known as the "Radical Whigs".