Alan Johnson (political theorist)

Alan Johnson is a British political theorist and activist. He is a senior research fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Previously he was Professor of Democratic Theory and Practice at Edge Hill University.

For other people named Alan Johnson, see Alan Johnson (disambiguation).

Early life

Johnson was born in North Shields and developed as a socialist in 1979 as a volunteer at the Marxist bookshop Days of Hope in Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1984, Johnson helped found the Merseyside Museum of Labour History (later the Museum of Liverpool Life).[1][2]

Career

From 1991 to 2011 Johnson was an academic at Edge Hill University in the Social Sciences. He became a reader in 2001 and professor of democratic theory and practice in 2007.[3]

In 2011 Johnson left Edge Hill University and became a senior research fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM).[4] Johnson is editor of BICOM's Fathom Journal magazine.[5]

Political positions
The panel at the public launch of the Euston Manifesto. From left to right: Alan Johnson, Eve Garrard, Nick Cohen, Shalom Lappin and Norman Geras.

Johnson was an editor of the journals Democratiya (2005–2009) and Engage Journal, the former of which he also helped found.[6] He is a scholar of the labour movement in Iraq,[7] and is a founding member of Labour Friends of Iraq.[1]

A former Trotskyist and long-term member of the Socialist Organiser Alliance,[8] researching Hal Draper,[9] Johnson is a co-author of the Euston Manifesto.[10] He was opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[1] Since 2003 he has worked with Abdullah Muhsin of the Iraqi Workers Federation.[11] Critical of the blanket labelling of advocates of military intervention against dictatorial regimes as neoconservatives in foreign policy, he calls for a "proper consideration of the social democratic antitotalitarianism of Paul Berman, Václav Havel, Adam Michnik, Ladan Boroumand, Kanan Makiya, Azar Nafisi, Bernard Kouchner, Tony Blair, or Gordon Brown" and points out that "neo-conservatives" in the Democratic Party deserve "their share of the credit" for "undermining cynical and self-defeating 'realism' and embracing democracy-promotion."[12]

He is 'a long time socialist and a supporter of Palestinian statehood' and is an activist for the two states for two peoples solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.[13]

The Dissent Editor and US political philosopher Michael Walzer argued Johnson's Democratiya was similar to Dissent in politics and style. 'Two commitments give shape to the Democratiya project. The first is to defend and promote a left politics that is liberal, democratic, egalitarian, and internationalist. Those four adjectives should routinely characterize left politics, but we all know that they don’t. The second commitment is to defend and promote a form of political argument that is nuanced, probing, and concrete, principled but open to disagreement: no slogans, no jargon, no unexamined assumptions, no party line. This argumentative style . . . is also a moral style.'[14]

In his A Foreign Policy for the Left, Michael Walzer wrote of Johnson's influence. 'I have also learned a great deal from two very different sets of friends in Great Britain, the authors of the Euston and Kilburn Manifestoes. Norman Geras, Alan Johnson, Shalom Lapin and Nick Cohen are the Eustonites. Michel Rustin and Stuart Hall are the Kilburnites'.[15]

Johnson has criticised the political theory of Slavoj Zizek as authoritarian and “left-fascist” over several essays.[16] Zizek responded angrily in his 2013 lecture in London[17] and in the New Statesman, calling Johnson "that jerk who pronounced me a leftist fascist', adding 'I think we should take over these - all of these authoritarian gestures - unity, leader, sacrifice - f*ck it! Why not?"[18]

Books
  • 2001: Leadership and social movements, Manchester University Press, 2001, co-authored with Colin Barker and Michael Lavalette. ISBN 978-0-7190-5902-5
  • 2003: Marxism and the American Worker (editor) a special issue of Historical Materialism: Critical Research in Marxist Theory, Vol 11. Issue 4. ISBN 9004-13606-1
  • 2006: Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions, TUC Publications, co-authored with Abdullah Muhsin. ISBN 1-85006-761-9
  • 2007: Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews, Foreign Policy Centre, 2007, Editor. ISBN 1-905833-11-3
  • 2013: The New Histadrut: Peace, Social Justice and the Israeli Trade Unions, TUFI, London.
  • 2019: Institutionally Antisemitic: Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the Crisis in the British Labour Party, Fathom Publications. ISBN 978-1-9160803-0-0
gollark: The postit note is visible to anyone who just walks by.
gollark: ... how?
gollark: I have not changed mine in several years, since I discovered a while ago that they stored them in plaintext (or at least not hashed).
gollark: At my schol™, your email is `[first 4 letters of last name][random 4-digit number]@[REDACTED]`, and the password is the password.
gollark: The first part is very easy to guess since it's generally your initials or something.

References
  1. Alan Johnson (18 September 2004). "Alan Johnson, Research and Publications Officer". Labour Friends of Iraq. Archived from the original on 19 August 2007. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
  2. Brian Wheeler (13 May 2002). "Milburn's radical days". BBC. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  3. "Professor Alan Johnson". Edge Hill University. Archived from the original on 23 December 2012. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  4. "Team". BICOM. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
  5. "Editorial team". fathom. Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  6. Johnson, Alan (19 March 2008). "Alan Johnson". Comment is Free. London.
  7. "SPS Newsletter – Iraq Book Launched in Washington DC". Department of Social and Psychological Sciences. Edge Hill University. 2006. Archived from the original on 26 June 2008. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
  8. "Why (despite everything) I'm supporting Corbyn: a reply to Alan Johnson". 16 August 2015.
  9. "Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism: Who are the real 'post-leftists'?".
  10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 19 July 2008. Retrieved 3 August 2008.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. Johnson, Alan (3 June 2008). "Full profile". The Guardian. London.
  12. Johnson, Alan (15 January 2008). "On neoconitis". The Guardian. London.
  13. Hirsh, David (2012). Contemporary Left Antisemitism: 'How do we create a future for the two-state solution?'. Foreign Policy Centre. p. 46.
  14. Source Michael Walzer, Preface in Global Politics Since 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews (Foreign Policy Centre, 2007). https://fpc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/901.pdf
  15. "A Foreign Policy for the Left: Amazon.co.uk: Walzer, Michael: 9780300223873: Books".
  16. 2012: Slavoj Zizek’s Theory of Revolution: A Critique’, in Matthew Johnson (Ed.) The Legacy of Marxism: Contemporary Challenges, Conflicts and Developments, Continuum.
  17. "Slavoj Zizek – A reply to my critics". Backdoor Broadcasting Company. 28 February 2013.
  18. Zizek, Slavoz (8 October 2013). "Most of the idiots I know are academics". New Statesman.
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