The Strategic Game to Undermine the Irish Vote on Lisbon

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Speech by Kieran Allen, National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party to the Peace & Neutrality Alliance Annual Conference 29/11/08

The vote on Lisbon is already being re-fought. Elite think tanks and senior academics on the Yes are marshalling arguments to undermine the democratic will of the Irish people.

In this report, we draw on the writings of the French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, to analyse the strategic games being currently played by these elite groups.

Political activists and media commentators rarely read sociological texts because they are sometimes written in an impenetrable style. But an exception should be made for a short, six page article from the French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu entitled Neoliberalism as a Conservative Revolution. It was originally delivered as a speech in 1997 – in other words, before the Wall St Crash of 2008 when the neoliberal dogma still seemed to be unassailable.

Read full speech (pdf file): KAllen2008.pdf

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