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 is derived from the Italian word manifesto, itself derived from the Latin manifestum. Its first recorded use in English is from 1620, in Nathaniel Brent's translation of Paolo Sarpi's History of the councel 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, following the election, either ignore, indefinitely delay, or even outright reject manifesto policies which were popular with the public.

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

Notable manifestos

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Political

Examples of notable manifestos:

• The United States Declaration of Independence (1776)
• The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789) during the French Revolution
• 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 Second Manifesto dealing with plural marriage, issued by Joseph F. Smith as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• The October Manifesto (1905) issued by Nicholas II, in an effort to cease the 1905 Russian Revolution
• The Manifesto of the Sixteen (1916)
• The Urmia Manifesto of the United Free Assyria, (1917) by Dr. Freydun Atturaya
• The Amasya Circular (1919)
• The Fascist manifesto (1919), by Fasci di Combattimento
• The Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals (1925), by Benedetto Croce
• Mein Kampf (My Struggle) (1925), by Adolf Hitler
• The Cannibal Manifesto (1928), by Oswald de Andrade
• I'll Take my Stand (1930), the manifesto of the Southern Agrarians
• 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 Oxford Manifesto (1947) describing the basic principles of Liberal International
• The Objectives Resolution of Pakistan (1949), by Liaquat Ali Khan
• The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955), against nuclear weapons and war
• The Southern Manifesto (1956), opposing the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education
• Report on the Construction of Situations (1957), by Guy Debord
• '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 M. Stanton Evans et al. (Young Americans for Freedom)
• The Port Huron Statement (1962), by Tom Hayden et al.
• The SCUM Manifesto (1968), by Valerie Solanas
• For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973), by Murray Rothbard
• New Libertarian Manifesto (1980), by Samuel Edward Konkin III
• A Christian Manifesto (1982), by Francis Schaeffer
• Manifesto against conscription and the military system (1993) by Christian Bartolf (Gandhi Information Center)
• The Contract with America (1994), by the Republican candidates for the House of Representatives
• Industrial Society and Its Future a.k.a. The Unabomber's Manifesto (1995) by Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski
• 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 Art of Noises (1913), by Luigi Russolo
• The Surrealist Manifesto (1924), by André Breton
• The Symbolist Manifesto (1886), by Jean Moreas
• Cyberfeminist Manifesto (1991) by VNS Matrix
• Dogma 95 (1995) by Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen
• [Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity] (1996) by Basarab Nicolescu
• 100 Anti-Theses of Cyberfeminism (1997) by Old Boys' Network
• Minnesota declaration: truth and fact in documentary cinema (1999), by Werner Herzog
• First Things First 2000 manifesto: Ethics and social responsibility in graphic design (1999), by Kalle Lasn & Chris Dixon with Ken Garland. Edited by Rick Poynor
• BLAST the Vorticist manifesto, by Wyndham Lewis
• The Anti-News Manifesto (2006), by Scott Ryan

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
• Cyberfeminist Manifesto (1991) by VNS Matrix
• 100 Anti-Theses of Cyberfeminism (1997) by Old Boys' Network
• 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
• The Third Manifesto (1995), by Christopher J. Date and Hugh Darwen, a proposal for relational database management system
• Monad Manifesto - The Origin of Windows Powershell (2002) by Jeffrey P. Snover

See also

• Art manifesto

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

References