3. Arguing

Author(s):  
Tony Wright

‘Arguing: the politics of ideas’ characterizes Britain’s political culture as one of institutionalized adversarialism. Arguments from the ‘left’ and ‘right’ are framed by debates and the media in terms of ‘for’ and ‘against’. Three political periods have changed the character of British politics—those of Attlee, Thatcher, and Blair, which respectively saw a post-war rebuilding, a move away from the state and towards market capitalism, and Labour’s move away from public ownership towards a broad ‘third way’. David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ was derailed by austerity politics and the results of the 2016 referendum, seen as a victory for the outsiders that left the insiders struggling to respond.

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 500-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ljubica Spaskovska

This article is part of the special section titled The Genealogies of Memory, guest edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joanna Wawrzyniak The article traces certain mnemonic patterns in the ways individuals who belonged to the late-socialist Yugoslav youth elite articulated their values in the wake of Yugoslavia’s demise and the ways they make sense of the Yugoslav socialist past and their generational role a quarter of a century later. It detects narratives of loss, betrayed hopes, and a general disillusionment with politics and the state of post-socialist democracy that appear to be particularly frequent in the testimonies of the media and cultural elites. They convey a sense of discontent with the state of post-Yugoslav democracy and with the politicians—some belonging to the same generation—who embraced conservative values and a semi-authoritarian political culture. The article argues that an emerging new authoritarianism and the very process of progressive disillusionment with post-socialist politics allowed for the emergence and articulation of such alternative, noninstitutionalized individual memories that, whilst not uncritical of the Yugoslav past, tend to highlight its positive aspects.


2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack H. Nagel ◽  
Christopher Wlezien

British elections exhibit two patterns contrary to expectations deriving from Duverger and Downs: centrist third parties (Liberals and their successors) win a large vote share; and the two major parties often espouse highly divergent policies. This article explores relations between the Liberal vote and left–right scores of the Labour and Conservative manifestos in the light of two hypotheses: the vacated centre posits that Liberals receive more votes when major parties diverge; the occupied centre proposes a lagged effect in which major parties diverge farther after Liberals do well in the preceding election. Data from elections since 1945 confirm the vacated-centre hypothesis, with Liberals benefiting about equally when the major parties diverge to the left and right, respectively. The results also support the occupied-centre hypothesis for Conservative party positions, but not for Labour’s. After considering explanations for this asymmetry, we identify historical events associated with turning points that our data reveal in post-war British politics.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Worrall

The essay surveys British political culture, principally from a domestic perspective, focussing on perceptions of internal and external threat and responses to those conditions. The continuing context of war (1793–1815) is emphasised. The suppression of free speech, a condition particularly relevant to writing, is traced. The role of the major competing political ideological positions is also described, including Burke, Paine, Malthus and Spence. Changes in the post-war culture of theatre-going is discussed, indicating how playhouses reflected changing popular sentiment.


2020 ◽  
pp. 147309522096962
Author(s):  
Ian Wray

America’s long post war boom was underpinned by the state, by Roosevelt’s New Deal, by its wartime economy, and by Roosevelt’s plans for investment in post war science and infrastructure. In the 1970s America abandoned its developmental model, as critics from left and right attacked plans and planners: yet in the fast rising states of Asia it was embraced. Is it too late for a wakeup call in America and Britain, the champions of anti-planning and the small state? This paper looks for explanations, examines consequences and suggests that the Covid pandemic may trigger a sea change in norms, values and attitudes towards planning and governance.


Author(s):  
Mona Ali Duaij ◽  
Ahlam Ahmed Issa

All the Iraqi state institutions and civil society organizations should develop a deliberate systematic policy to eliminate terrorism contracted with all parts of the economic, social, civil and political institutions and important question how to eliminate Daash to a terrorist organization hostile and if he country to eliminate the causes of crime and punish criminals and not to justify any type of crime of any kind, because if we stayed in the curriculum of justifying legitimate crime will deepen our continued terrorism, but give it legitimacy formula must also dry up the sources of terrorism media and private channels and newspapers that have abused the Holy Prophet Muhammad (p) and all kinds of any of their source (a sheei or a Sunni or Christians or Sabians) as well as from the religious aspect is not only the media but a meeting there must be cooperation of both parts of the state facilities and most importantly limiting arms possession only state you can not eliminate terrorism and violence, and we see people carrying arms without the name of the state and remains somewhat carefree is sincerity honesty and patriotism the most important motivation for the elimination of violence and terrorism and cooperation between parts of the Iraqi people and not be driven by a regional or global international schemes want to kill nations and kill our bodies of Sunnis, sheei , Christians, Sabean and Yazidi and others.


Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi

The book integrates philosophical, historical, and empirical analyses in order to highlight the profound roots of the limited legitimation of parties in contemporary society. Political parties’ long attempts to gain legitimacy are analysed from a philosophical–historical perspective pinpointing crucial passages in their theoretical and empirical acceptance. The book illustrates the process through which parties first emerged and then achieved full legitimacy in the early twentieth century. It shows how, paradoxically, their role became absolute in the totalitarian regimes of the interwar period when the party became hyper-powerful. In the post-war period, parties shifted from a golden age of positive reception and organizational development towards a more difficult relationship with society as it moved into post-industrialism. Parties were unable to master societal change and favoured the state to recover resources they were no longer able to extract from their constituencies. Parties have become richer and more powerful, but they have ‘paid’ for their pervasive presence in society and the state with a declining legitimacy. The party today is caught in a dramatic contradiction. It has become a sort of Leviathan with clay feet: very powerful thanks to the resources it gets from the state and to its control of societal and state spheres due to an extension of clientelistic and patronage practices; but very weak in terms of legitimacy and confidence in the eyes of the mass public. However, it is argued that there is still no alternative to the party, and some hypotheses to enhance party democracy are advanced.


Author(s):  
Aled Davies

The aim of this book has been to evaluate the relationship between Britain’s financial sector, based in the City of London, and the social democratic economic strategy of post-war Britain. The central argument presented in the book was that changes to the City during the 1960s and 1970s undermined a number of the key post-war social democratic techniques designed to sustain and develop a modern industrial economy. Financial institutionalization weakened the state’s ability to influence investment, and the labour movement was unable successfully to integrate the institutionalized funds within a renewed social democratic economic agenda. The post-war settlement in banking came under strain in the 1960s as new banking and credit institutions developed that the state struggled to manage. This was exacerbated by the decision to introduce competition among the clearing banks in 1971, which further weakened the state’s capacity to control the provision and allocation of credit to the real economy. The resurrection of an unregulated global capital market, centred on London, overwhelmed the capacity of the state to pursue domestic-focused macroeconomic policies—a problem worsened by the concurrent collapse of the Bretton Woods international monetary system. Against this background, the fundamental social democratic assumption that national prosperity could be achieved only through industry-led growth and modernization was undermined by an effective campaign to reconceptualize Britain as a fundamentally financial and commercial nation with the City of London at its heart....


Author(s):  
Asha Rogers

Debates about the value of the ‘literary’ rarely register the expressive acts of state subsidy, sponsorship, and cultural policy that have shaped post-war Britain. In State Sponsored Literature, Asha Rogers argues that the modern state was a major material condition of literature, even as its efforts were relative, partial, and prone to disruption. Drawing from neglected and occasionally unexpected archives, she shows how the state became an integral and conflicted custodian of literary freedom in the postcolonial world as beliefs about literature’s ‘public’ were radically challenged by the unrivalled migration to Britain at the end of Empire. State Sponsored Literature retells the story of literature’s place in modern Britain through original analysis of the institutional forces behind canon-formation and contestation, from the literature programmes of the British Council and Arts Council to the UK’s fraught relations with UNESCO, from GCSE literature anthologies to the origins of The Satanic Verses in migrant Camden. The state did not shape literary production in a vacuum, Rogers argues, rather its policies, practices, and priorities were inexorably shaped in turn. Demonstrating how archival work can potentially transform our understanding of literature and its reading publics, this book challenges how we think about literature’s value by asking what state involvement has meant for writers, readers, institutions, and the ideal of autonomy itself.


Author(s):  
Peer Ghulam Nabi Suhail

This chapter begins with tracing the roots of colonialism in India, followed by understanding its various structures and processes of resource-grabbing. It argues, that India has largely followed the colonial approach towards land appropriation. After independence, although the Indian state followed a nationalistic path of development, the developmental approach of the state was far from being pro-peasant and/or pro-ecology. In a similar fashion, hydroelectricity projects in Kashmir, developed by NHPC from 1970s, have been displacing thousands of peasants from their lands and houses. Despite this, they are yet to become a major debate in the media, in the policy circles, or in academia in India.


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