Manifesto

A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as a creed. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.

Contents

Etymology

Manifesto is derived from the Italian word manifesto, itself derived from the Latin manifestum, meaning clear or conspicuous. Its first recorded use in English is from 1620, in Nathaniel Brent's translation of Paolo Sarpi's History of the council of Trent: "To this citation he made answer by a Manifesto" (p 102). Similarly, "They were so farre surprized with his Manifesto, that they would never suffer it to be published" (p 103)[1]

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 has diminished somewhat due to a significant tendency for winning parties to, ignore, indefinitely delay, or even outright reject manifesto policies which were popular with the public upon taking office.

An alternative term, used especially in North America, is party platform.

Notable manifestos

Political

Examples of notable manifestos:

Artistic

Technology

See also

External links

References

Open source encyclopedia content modification information:

This page was last modified on 19 March 2010 at 23:35.

Authorship and Review

Open source encyclopedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Content is sourced directly from Wikipedia and is authored by an open community of volunteers. It is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Manifesto", which is available in its original form here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manifesto

All material adapted used from Wikipedia is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Wikipedia® itself is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.