scholarly journals From Old Labour to New Labour: A Comment on Rubinstein

Politics ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Driver ◽  
Luke Martell
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
New Labour ◽  
Good Account ◽  
Post War

In a critique of our book New Labour, David Rubinstein has argued that we exaggerate the degree of difference between Old and New Labour and underplay the similarities. In this article we agree with many of the continuities that Rubinstein outlines. However, we argue that he himself gives plenty of evidence in favour of our thesis that change has been marked in many policy areas. We argue that we give a good account of the wider social factors that he says accounts for such change. In this article we offer a restatement of the view that New Labour offers a ‘post-Thatcherite’ politics. New Labour breaks both with post-war social democracy and with Thatcherism.

The Politics of Banking and Social Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
Banking System ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Industrial Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Demand

This chapter concerns the politics of managing the domestic banking system in post-war Britain. It examines the pressures brought to bear on the post-war settlement in banking during the 1960s and 1970s—in particular, the growth of new credit creating institutions and the political demand for more competition between banks. This undermined the social democratic model for managing credit established since the war. The chapter focuses in particular on how the Labour Party attempted in the 1970s to produce a banking system that was competitive, efficient, and able to channel credit to the struggling industrial economy.

Interrogating and Conceptualizing the Legacy of Thatcherism

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Hay ◽  
Stephen Farrall
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
New Labour ◽  
Post War ◽  
British State ◽  
Strict Definition ◽  
Policy Targets

This chapter reflects on the debates surrounding Thatcherism with the benefit of hindsight. Most commentators seem to accept that Thatcherism is now a historic concept—referring, if not exactly to the period 1979–90, then certainly to events now largely concluded. This allows us a degree of historical perspective that was previously unavailable. Current assessments by political scientists of the rise of ‘New Labour’ and of the development of the British state in the post-war period have had to grapple with this period (and, indeed, 1997). But there are other reasons for returning to Thatcherism and perhaps even for preferring the term ‘Thatcherism’ to the more recent ‘neo-liberalism’. ‘Thatcherism’—however hard it remains to offer a strict definition—embraced more than just neo-liberal ideas. Thatcherism combined both neo-liberal and neo-conservative strands and was often at its more radical and consequential when it identified policy targets which combined elements of both.

Social democracy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Miller
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Practical Politics ◽  
Post War ◽  
Distribution Of Income

The idea of social democracy is now used to describe a society the economy of which is predominantly capitalist, but where the state acts to regulate the economy in the general interest, provides welfare services outside of it and attempts to alter the distribution of income and wealth in the name of social justice. Originally ’social democracy’ was more or less equivalent to ’socialism’. But since the mid-twentieth century, those who think of themselves as social democrats have come to believe that the old opposition between capitalism and socialism is outmoded; many of the values upheld by earlier socialists can be promoted by reforming capitalism rather than abolishing it. Although it bases itself on values like democracy and social justice, social democracy cannot really be described as a political philosophy: there is no systematic statement or great text that can be pointed to as a definitive account of social democratic ideals. In practical politics, however, social democratic ideas have been very influential, guiding the policies of most Western states in the post-war world.

scholarly journals New Modes of Reproducing Social Inequality in Education: The Changing Role of Parents, Teachers, Schools and Educational Policies

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnès Van Zanten
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Sociology Of Education ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Educational Trajectories ◽  
Inequality In Education ◽  
Role Of Parents ◽  
Post War ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
Recent Policy

This article is based on the Keynote Address to the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Crete, Greece, 21–25 September 2004. One of the most consistent results in sociology of education research has been the existence of inequalities in school results and educational trajectories related to social factors. Despite an important increase in number of years of schooling for all children in most European countries in the post-war period, research still shows important differences between social and ethnic groups and even a widening of the gap between the most advantaged and most disadvantaged in some countries. Factors shown by previous studies to account for these differences are still at work, but many of them are influential in new ways. In addition to this, new factors have to be taken into account. Using available sociological literature on European countries, while focusing specifically on France as an exemplary case, this article presents some of the new constraints on and opportunities for action by parents, teachers and schools that result from both economic, cultural and educational changes and recent policy orientations.

scholarly journals THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT AND DREAMS OF BRITAIN'S POST-WAR FUTURE

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 473-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIT KOWOL
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Liberal Approach ◽  
Post War ◽  
British People

AbstractThe British general election of 1945 and the return of the nation's first ever majority Labour government was a profound turning point in Britain's political history. The scale of Labour's victory, and the belief in its inevitability, has, however, obscured important developments in British Conservatism. Historians have subsequently characterized the Conservative party as either unwilling to develop their own distinct plans for the post-war future, or divided between those who were willing to embrace the policies of social democracy and those with a neo-liberal approach to political economy. This article challenges this depiction by examining the thoughts and actions of those within what it terms the wartime ‘Conservative movement’: the constellation of fringe and pressure groups that orbited around the Conservative party during the period. In examining this movement, it identifies three major traditions of Conservative political thinking, and three sets of activists and parliamentarians all committed to developing radical Conservative plans for post-war Britain. The article demonstrates how these different traditions built upon but also radicalized pre-existing currents of Conservative thought, how the language of social democracy was co-opted and reinterpreted by those within the Conservative movement, and how the war changed Conservative perception of the British people.

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