Class, Culture and Morality: A Sociological Analysis of Neo-Conservatism

1987 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Elliott ◽  
David McCrone
Keyword(s):  
New Right ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Business Associations ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Research Institutes ◽  
Post War ◽  
International Character

In Britain, as in many other western countries, there emerged in the mid-1970s a variety of business associations, policy and research institutes and political leagues, committed not only to the restoration of a Conservative government, but also to a much broader refurbishing of conservatism. A network of organizations, individuals and ideas grew up that became identified as the New Right. The New Right, which clearly has an international character, was generated by economic and political crises, but it was nurtured by a variety of resentments and discontents whose roots lay in structural and cultural changes that had developed over the whole post-war period. Drawing, in part, upon interviews with leaders of the organisations that did most to mobilize opinion behind the New Right in Britain, the article examines the major changes – particularly those in class structure and in culture – to which the new conservatives were reacting. It explores the major ideological strands – libertarian, neo-liberal and conservative – and looks at the attempts by the New Right to use these to produce changes not only in economic policy but in the cultural and moral fabric of society.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This book is a study of the political economy of Britain’s chief financial centre, the City of London, in the two decades prior to the election of Margaret Thatcher’s first Conservative government in 1979. The primary purpose of the book is to evaluate the relationship between the financial sector based in the City, and the economic strategy of social democracy in post-war Britain. In particular, it focuses on how the financial system related to the social democratic pursuit of national industrial development and modernization, and on how the norms of social democratic economic policy were challenged by a variety of fundamental changes to the City that took place during the period....

Class, Culture, and State: An Analysis of Interest Representation by Two Turkish Business Associations

1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayşe Buğra
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Voluntary Associations ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Business Associations ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Interest Representation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Activities

This article presents a comparative analysis of the social role of two voluntary associations of Turkish businessmen: TUSIAD (The Association of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen) and MUSIAD (The Association of Independent Industrialists and Businessmen). These associations are approached both as mechanisms of interest representation and as agents of two different class strategies. Hence, the article highlights two types of organizational activities that accompany interest articulation and representation: first, the activities which seek to bind the “bearers of interest” or “members of class” into coherent communities, and second, those aimed at the promotion of particular macro-level social projects.

The Politics of Wider Share Ownership

2021 ◽  
pp. 127-161
Author(s):  
Kieran Heinemann
Keyword(s):  
Stock Market ◽  
New Right ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Share Ownership ◽  
Legislative Action ◽  
Economic Individualism ◽  
Post War ◽  
Mass Participation ◽  
Stock Market Investment ◽  
Capitalist Enterprise

The question of whether ordinary people should own stocks and shares has a long political trajectory in Britain. When the idea of creating a property-owning democracy of small shareholders took shape in the interwar period, there was still a consensus among Britain’s political elites that ordinary people should stay away from the stock market. By the end of the century, however, politicians welcomed the fact that there were more private shareholders in Britain than trade union members. In the post-war decades, wider share ownership had some supporters in all major parties, but no government took legislative action because schemes were difficult to reconcile with the mixed economy. Eventually, the economic hardship of the 1970s brought a noticeable shift in attitudes towards mass participation in the stock market. Conservative politicians, journalists, and businessmen of the increasingly influential New Right advocated a return to economic individualism that was motivated by a perceived decline of allegedly middle-class, bourgeois, or ‘Victorian’ values. This ‘declinism’ shaped Thatcherite plans in opposition for a new tax code that would encourage direct involvement with capitalist enterprise. Throughout the decades, however, policymakers and advocates of wider share ownership realized that stock market investment not only lent itself to an exercise in bourgeois values of thrift and deferred gratification, but could also foster speculation and gambling. The line between prudent saving, beneficial investment, and speculative risk-taking always proved difficult to draw and crossing it demanded careful communication.

Sozialer Identitätsanspruch und die Legitimation der Betreuung / Social Identity Claims and the Legitimacy of Custody

1977 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Plake
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Social Differentiation ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Borderline Cases ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
The People ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThe custodial function of people changing organizations is usually latent; as against the socialization/therapy dominating in the outward presentation and consciousness of the members, it only comes into being in borderline cases. Sociological analysis of the establishment of schools and psychiatrical clinics shows however that even from the beginning the development of these organizations only made „progress“, if the socialization was linked with custodial interests - e.g. due to increasing social differentiation or political crises. Also today certain tendencies in the development of the educational system reveal the relevance of the custodial function, although it is partly overlapped by other factors. Contrary to the widespread belief that socialization and custodial functions can be fulfilled simultaneously both functions can only be combined on a marginal basis, because similar implications do have different meanings. Irrespective of numerous endeavours within the people changing organizations to interpret social processes in consistency with the socializing function, the efficiency of the socialization can be completely ruined immediately, should the custodial function become obvious. A less rigid definition of the identity standards could relieve the people changing organizations of custodial demands.

scholarly journals MPs' Attitudes to Welfare: A New Consensus?

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
HUGH BOCHEL ◽  
ANDREW DEFTY
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
New Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Mixed Economy ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Welfare State

The post-war ‘consensus’ on welfare was based largely in the perceived agreement of leading politicians of Conservative and Labour parties on the role of the mixed economy and the welfare state. However, from the late 1970s economic and demographic pressures and ideological challenges, particularly from the New Right, led to cuts in spending on welfare, increased private involvement and an emphasis on more individualistic and selectivist approaches to provision. Recently some scholars have begun to discuss the emergence of a ‘new liberal consensus’ around welfare provision. Drawing upon interviews with 10 per cent of the House of Commons, this article examines the extent to which a new political consensus upon welfare can be identified. In addition to analysing responses to questions on welfare issues, it considers the extent to which MPs themselves believe there to be some degree of consensus in approaches to welfare. It also considers whether any consensus exists merely in the political language used in relation to welfare issues, or whether there is a more substantive convergence.

Resignation at the Treasury: the Social Services Committee and the Failure to Reform the Welfare State, 1955–57

1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Constructive Development ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
Main Protagonist ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
Welfare Expenditure

ABSTRACTBetween 1955–7 welfare expenditure in Britain came under serious attack. The main protagonist was the Treasury and its chosen implement a five-year review of the social services, to be presided over by a ministerial Social Services Committee. The attack rebounded, for the Committee provided the opportunity for the consolidation of the defence of welfare expenditure and for a frontal attack on Treasury assumptions. This neglected episode in Conservative government social policy places in historical context the early defeat of monetarism (with Thorneycroft's resignation in 1958) and provides the background to the establishment of the Plowden Committee and of the Public Expenditure Survey Committee. It also raises questions about the degree of post-war consensus and the failure to make the constructive development of the welfare state an objective of ‘conviction’ politics.

The Legacy of Thatcherism

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Life ◽  
New Right ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Path Dependencies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Welfare Families

Three decades after the election of Mrs Thatcher, it is perhaps time to take stock of the concept of ‘Thatcherism’ and the prominent role it has played in the history of post-war Britain. Of course, there is much debate about what ‘Thatcherism’ was, with some arguing that Thatcherism was more noteworthy for its rhetoric than for its achievements. Indeed, when it came to the welfare state little had changed after 13 years of Thatcherism. Some historians have additionally suggested that other social forces that had existed prior to Thatcher will outlast her. Yet, whichever way one looks at it, the Thatcherite project of the 1980s brought about a fundamental reorganization of much of the UK’s social and economic life. Did Thatcherite policies dramatically alter the trajectory of the country’s development? Can even long-term and seemingly enduring path dependencies be altered as dramatically as claimed? Ought Thatcher’s period in office be seen as a ‘critical juncture’ for the UK? This book brings together a range of experts in housing, economics, law and order, education, welfare, families, geography, and politics to discuss the enduring legacy of those social and economic policies initiated by the first of the UK’s New Right governments (1979–90).

DEMOCRACY AS A CONTESTED CONCEPT IN POST-WAR WESTERN EUROPE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF POLITICAL DEBATES IN FRANCE, WEST GERMANY, AND ITALY

2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
PEPIJN CORDUWENER
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S

ABSTRACTThis article explores how political parties in France, West Germany, and Italy conceptualized democracy and challenged the conceptions of democracy of their political adversaries between the end of the 1940s and the early 1960s. It studies from a comparative perspective the different conceptions of democracy held by Christian democrat, Left-wing, and Gaullist political actors and shows how these diverged on key issues such as the economic system, foreign policy, the separation of powers, electoral systems, and the use of state institutions in the defence of democracy against anti-democratic forces. In this way, the article reveals how in the first fifteen years after the Second World War, government and opposition parties disputed each other's democratic credentials and political legitimacy, and it thereby reconsiders the claim that there existed a broad consensus on the meaning of democracy among political elites in post-war Western Europe. It is argued that these different conceptions of democracy only started to converge after they had clashed during political crises at the turn of the 1960s in all three states. This study thereby contributes to an enhanced understanding the formation of the post-war democratic order in Western Europe.

Stazione Zoologica Napoli

1951 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-282 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Cooperation ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Historical Trends ◽  
New Born ◽  
Working Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Post War ◽  
International Character ◽  
Anton Dohrn ◽  
Stazione Zoologica

The Stazione Zoologica at Naples has had a long and distinguished career since its opening in February 1874. The Stazione came into being through the inspiration and drive of Anton Dohrn, a man remarkable for the originality of his ideas and for the tenacity with which he strove to secure their fruition. Anton Dohrn was a German : he built the Stazione Zoologica in Italy with funds provided by himself and by men and organizations of many nationalities; the Stazione was international in origin. After its foundation, the Stazione was in part supported by funds derived from its show-piece, the aquarium, and in part from the now famous ‘table’ system, whereby many countries rented working-space and facilities for scientific research within its walls. That the international character of the Stazione Zoologica has been preserved intact despite two world wars, is a tribute to the principles on which it was founded. Few, if any, scientific laboratories have so striking an international flavour; and this is the more remarkable when one considers the major historical trends during the years subsequent to the Stazione’s foundation. An active ‘ neutral ’ diplomacy throughout these years has successfully, though sometimes precariously, avoided the pitfalls of unilateral allegiance. In times of peace, an international organism requires to be assiduously tended in order that it may thrive: in times of war, it needs to be fiercely and stubbornly protected so that it may survive. Zoologists the world over may well feel content that their common heritage has been not merely preserved, but also that it flourishes as strongly as though it were some new-born offspring of post-war international cooperation.

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