Manifesto

A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature, but may also be life stance related. However, manifestos relating to religious belief are rather referred to as credo.

Etymology

Manifesto [mid 17th century] is derived from the italian word 'manifestare', which is Latin meaning 'make public'.

Electoral manifestos

In some parliamentary democracies, political parties prepare electoral manifestos which set out both their strategic direction and outlines of prospective legislation should they win sufficient support in an election to serve in government. Legislative proposals which are featured in the manifesto of a party which has won an election are often regarded as having superior legitimacy to other measures which a governing party may introduce for consideration by the legislature. Although, in recent decades the status of electoral manifestos in the UK has diminished somewhat due to a significant tendency for winning parties to, following the election, either ignore, indefinitely delay, or even outright reject manifesto policies which were popular with the public.

The presidential democracy equivalent is the party platform.

Notable manifestos

Political

Examples of notable manifestos:

• The United States Declaration of Independence (1776)
• The Cartagena Manifesto (1812), by Simón Bolívar
• The Tamworth Manifesto issued in 1834 by Sir Robert Peel
• The Communist Manifesto (1848), by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
• The Anarchist Manifesto (1850), by Anselme Bellegarrigue.
• The Humanist Manifesto I, II and III
• The 1890 Manifesto dealing with plural marriage, issued by Wilford Woodruff as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• The Urmia Manifesto of the United Free Assyria, (1917) by Dr. Freydun Atturaya
• The Fascist manifesto (1919), by Fasci di Combattimento
• The Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals (1925), by Benedetto Croce
• The Cannibal Manifesto (1928), by Oswald de Andrade
• The Regina Manifesto (1933), by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
• A Christian Manifesto (1934) by Edwin Lewis
• The PKWN manifesto (1944), by Polish Committee of National Liberation
• The Objectives Resolution of Pakistan (1949), by Liaquat Ali Khan
• The Southern Manifesto (1956), opposing the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education
• 'The Capitalist Manifesto (1958), proposing the Democratization of Capital, including employee and citizen's ownership by Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler (see Binary Economics')
• The Manifesto of the 121 against the Algerian War
• The Sharon Statement (1960), by William F. Buckley, Jr. (Young Americans for Freedom)
• The Port Huron Statement (1962), by Tom Hayden et al.
• The SCUM Manifesto (1968), by Valerie Solanas
• A Christian Manifesto (1982), by Francis Schaeffer
• Manifesto against conscription and the military system (1993) by Christian Bartolf (Gandhi Information Center)
• Industrial Society and Its Future a.k.a. The Unabomber's Manifesto (1995) by Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski
• The Third Manifesto (1995), by Christopher J. Date and Hugh Darwen's, a proposal for truly relational database management systems
• The Hedonistic Imperative by David Pearce
• The Libre Manifesto, by the Libre Society
• Life on Earth (2002) by Luke Helder
• The Free Culture Manifesto (2004), by FreeCulture.org
• Manifesto on Freedom and Democracy for Vietnam (2006) by Bloc 8406
• The Euston Manifesto (2006) by Euston Manifesto Group
• The Revolution: A Manifesto (2008) by Ron Paul

Artistic

• The Futurist Manifesto (1909), by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
• The Surrealist Manifesto (1924), by André Breton
• Dogma 95 (1995) by Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen
• Minnesota declaration: truth and fact in documentary cinema (1999), by Werner Herzog

Technology

• A Cyborg Manifesto (1985), by Donna Haraway
• The GNU Manifesto (1985), by Richard Stallman, an explanation and definition of the goals of the GNU Project
• Industrial Society and Its Future, otherwise known as The Unabomber Manifesto (1995), By Ted Kaczynski
• The Hacker's Manifesto (1986), By The Mentor aka Loyd Blankenship
• Pluginmanifesto by Ana Kronschnabl, a Web film statement
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar (1997), by Eric S. Raymond
• The Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger
• The Hacktivismo Declaration (2001) by Oxblood Ruffin (Hacktivismo)
• The Agile Manifesto (2001) by 17 software professionals

External links

• Manifestos.net
• An archive of Labour electoral manifestos from 1900-present
• An archive of Conservative electoral manifestos from 1900-present
• An archive of Liberal/SDP/Liberal Democrat electoral manifestos from 1900-present