Identity politics 1) Introduction Identity politics refers to political positions based on the interests and perspectives of social groups with which people identify. Identity politics includes the ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through loosely correlated social organizations. politics of states, and irredentist and secessionist movements. Nationalism may be deployed both by established nation-states and by minorities challenging the political status quo. In all these cases, however, it is based on the existence of a shared national identity. In their articulation, such national identities may rely on the presence of identity groups and democratic politics. The relationship is far more complex yet no less important than that suggested by these and other common defenses and critiques of identity politics. People identify with others by ethnicity, race, nationality, culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, class, disability, age, ideology, and other social identity change, there should be evidence of identity change coinciding with ethnic presidential change in non-democracies. To test this theory I use demographic survey data from fourteen African countries that have had ethnic presidential changes and at least two comparable surveys collecting data on ethnic identity. environment in which the new identity politics are nurtured' (2006:81-2). Kaldor attributes 'the growth in the identity politics to lack of politics of ideas i.e. lack of forward looking projects' (2006: 81). In contrast to politics of ideas, identity politics tends to be fragementative, backward looking and exclusive. The new wars The Challenge of Identity Politics The Marxist, XXVII 1-2, January-June 2011 PRAKASH KARAT Today, all over the world, identity politics has become an important feature of politics and political activities. Till the 1960s, the concept of identity politics did not even exist. It is from the 1980s that identity politics came into prominence The politics of the identification effort may be collective and institutional but it may also appear on the level of ad-hoc individual self-organisational conceptualisation. This collection of articles 1 is concentrated around the "Dynamic Perspectives of Identity Politics: Analysis of Dialogue and Conflict" (2008-2013) target-fi- to punish another individual they share a group identity with. However, even though growing partisanship is a widely-studied phenomenon, the policy implications of voters' partisan assess-ments of candidates and their policies have received scant attention. Given the evolving nature of partisanship toward identity politics and its growing in Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these identities. Identity politics is deeply connected with the idea that some groups in society are oppressed and begins with analysis of that oppression. Introduction: Identity Politics he recent success of identity politics as the main thorn in the side of "the philosophy of our times,"1 liberalism, has gone largely unchallenged. Indeed, apart from the occasional protest that only "Marxism provides the theoretical tools for ending oppression, while identity politics does not,"2 Identity politics has filled the vacuum created by the demise of ideological contenders for universal a