Radical politics

The Oxford English Dictionary traces usage of 'radical' in a political context to 1783. The Encyclopædia Britannica records the first political usage of 'radical' as ascribed to Charles James Fox, a British Whig Party parliamentarian who in 1797 proposed a 'radical reform' of the electoral system to provide universal manhood suffrage, thereby idiomatically establishing the term 'Radicals' as a label denoting supporters of the reformation of British Parliament. With the rise of Marxism, the notion of radical politics shifted away from reformism and became more associated with revolutionary politics. with the 19th-century Cyclopaedia of Political Science describing it as "characterized less by its principles than by the manner of their application". During the 20th century, radical politicians took power in many countries across the world. Such radical leaders included Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin in Russia, Mao Zedong in China, Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran, Adolf Hitler in Germany, as well as more mainstream radicals such as Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. == Positions ==

Status quo change The common feature to all radical political forms is a view that some fundamental change is required of the status quo. For an array of anti-capitalist forms, this manifests in anti-establishment reactions to modern neoliberal regimes. • "Ideology conserves by camouflaging flawed social conditions, giving an illusory account of their rationale or function, in order to legitimate and win acceptance of them." In addressing specific issues, some radical politics may completely forgo any overarching ideological plan. Difference from extremism Astrid Bötticher identifies several differences between radicalism and extremism, among them in goals (idealistic vs. restorative, emancipatory vs. anti-democratic), morals (particular vs. universal), approach towards diversity (acceptance vs. disdain), and use of violence (pragmatic and selective vs. legitimate and acceptable). == See also ==