India, Indira and After

1985 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. J. Nossiter
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Soap Opera ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Political Management ◽  
Fair Assessment ◽  
Western Media

IN THE WESTERN MEDIA RECENT EVENTS IN INDIA HAVE OFTEN been trivialized by comparison with a soap opera called Dynasty. A more appropriate analogy would be the Greek tragedy: the rejection of Mrs Gandhi at the polls in 1977; her sweeping return to power in 1980; the death of her heir apparent, Sanjay, in 1980; the invasion of the Golden Temple in June 1984; and on 31 October her assassination. Greatness, tragedy, hubris and nemesis are all there.A fair assessment of Mrs Indira Gandhi's contribution to her country is far from easy, not least because she was regally enigmatic. Her friendships ranged from Michael Foot to Margaret Thatcher. Her presence was formidable yet both to old and non-political family friends she was a loving sister or aunt. Alone among Indian politicians she drew massive crowds and, Sikhs apart, her death was mourned by her opponents as much as her supporters. Indira had not expected to enter politics but by acting as her widowed father Pandit Nehru's hostess and confidante, and, in the late 1950s, as Congress General Secreta , she gained an invaluable apprenticeship in the techniques of political management and the art of statecraft. When Nehru's immediate successor as Indian Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, died after less than two years in office, Congress chiefs found it easier to nominate Nehru's daughter as their leader than to agree on one of their own number, particularly since they all underestimated her strength of character and purpose.

Classical Presences and ‘Post Dramatic’ Performances

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Israeli Society ◽  
The Political

This chapter looks at theatrical productions created in the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, which sought to convey the shock that permeated Israeli society as a result, and to provide theatrical responses to help the grieving community come to terms with his death. The chapter analyses the theatrical oeuvre of four post dramatic theatre creators—Ruth Kanner, Ilan Ronen, Rina Yerushalmi, and Hanan Snir—who saw Greek classical tragedy as a vast artistic arena where the political, the humanistic, and the artistic-performative merge, encompassing present and past, myth and history. Moreover, classical Greek tragedy allowed them to project their most disturbing concerns about the Israeli present and future by tearing apart the well-known texts, deconstructing their dramatic templates, and editing, adapting, revising, and redesigning their content in the decades after Rabin’s assassination, when hope gave way to despair.

scholarly journals Losing the Discursive Battle but Winning the Ideological War: Who Holds Thatcherite Values Now?

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172098670
Author(s):  
Stephen Farrall ◽  
Emily Gray ◽  
Phil Mike Jones ◽  
Colin Hay
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
New Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
The Uk

In what ways, if at all, do past ideologies shape the values of subsequent generations of citizens? Are public attitudes in one period shaped by the discourses and constructions of an earlier generation of political leaders? Using Thatcherism – one variant of the political New Right of the 1980s – as the object of our enquiries, this article explores the extent to which an attitudinal legacy is detectable among the citizens of the UK some 40 years after Margaret Thatcher first became Prime Minister. Our article, drawing on survey data collected in early 2019 (n = 5781), finds that younger generations express and seemingly embrace key tenets of her and her governments’ philosophies. Yet at the same time, they are keen to describe her government’s policies as having ‘gone too far’. Our contribution throws further light on the complex and often covert character of attitudinal legacies. One reading of the data suggests that younger generations do not attribute the broadly Thatcherite values that they hold to Thatcher or Thatcherism since they were socialised politically after such values had become normalised.

Thatcherism: An Historical Perspective

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 17-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. H. H. Green
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Election Manifesto

Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party in November 1990, but both she and the political ideology to which her name has been appended continue to fascinate pundits and scholars. Indeed, since Thatcher's resignation in November 1990, curiosity about her political legacy has, if anything, increased, fuelled in part by the memoirs produced by the ex-premier herself and a large number of her one-time Cabinet colleagues. Since the early 1980s the bulk of work that has appeared on Thatcherism has been dominated either by what one might describe as the ‘higher journalism’ or by political science scholarship, both of which have been most exercised by the questions of what Thatcherism was and where it took British politics and society. In this essay I want to look at Thatcherism from an historical perspective and thus ask a different question, namely where did Thatcherism, and in particular the political economy of Thatcherism, come from?Given that Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative party in 1975 this might seem a logical starting-point from which to track Thatcherism's origins. Some have argued, however, that Thatcher's election in itself was of little importance, in that the Conservative party's leadership contest in 1975 was a competition not to be Edward Heath, and that Thatcher won because she was more obviously not Edward Heath than anyone else. This emphasis on the personal aspects of the leadership issue necessarily plays down any ideological significance of Thatcher's victory, a point often reinforced by reference to the fact that key elements of the policy agenda that came to be associated with Thatcherism, notably privatisation, were by no means clearly articulated in the late 1970s and did not appear in the Conservative Election Manifesto of 1979.

About Face

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Face Perception ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Holistic Processing ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Grotesque

Inverting the eyes and the mouth in a smiling face renders the expression grotesque. However, when this image is itself rotated through 180 degrees, the grotesque expression is no longer apparent—the smiling expression returns. This illusion, first shown with the face of the then UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has been explained as showing the detrimental effects of inversion on configural or holistic processing of faces. This explanation is, however, not entirely satisfactory and the illusion is still not fully understood. Variants and relevant parameters of the effect are explored, as are related concepts of inversion, expression, and face perception.

Israel, Hamas online war has limited impact on opinion

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
English Language ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Western Media

Significance Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu suggested that Israel could seek to take the PA to the ICC over its reconciliation agreement with the "war criminals" of Hamas. Alongside the diplomatic stage, Israel and the Palestinians are increasingly playing out their battle for international legitimacy on the internet. This confrontation escalated during the conflict between Israel and Hamas in July and August 2014, with both sides and their supporters investing heavily in social media efforts to disseminate their messages and win support for their narratives. Impacts Israel's slick English-language social media operations will ensure its message is frequently picked up in the Western media. However, Hamas's social media emphasis on civilian casualties will also resonate increasingly widely in Western media. As bilateral relations with the EU deteriorate, Israel will step up its efforts on European social media platforms to boost its legitimacy.

Introduction

2015 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Sally-Ann Treharne
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
The Us ◽  
Anglo American

Individuals and relations between leaders play a role in international politics. The broadly parallel leaderships of President Ronald W. Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher saw a revival of the Anglo-American ‘Special Relationship’ in the 1980s. The quality and intensity of their personal rapport is frequently assumed to have played a role in this. Deepening Cold War tensions and a strong anti-communist rhetoric also played important roles in drawing the two leaders closer. A commonality of many critical interests, along with cultural, linguistic, political and filial ties, underpinned their growing attachment and friendship. In addition, pre-existing intelligence cooperation, defence and nuclear interdependence (most would say British dependence on the US) helped to forge strong links between both countries....

From Thatcher to May and beyond

2018 ◽  
pp. 121-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meryl Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Female Candidates

This chapter considers the place of women in British politics and how it has changed since the election of Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. It examines how the issue of gender featured in the campaign and in parties’ manifestos, before analysing the different parties’ records on selecting female candidates. It describes how women increasingly hold leadership positions in British politics but concludes that, without further action in the form of quotas, full gender equality at Westminster is unlikely to be achieved any time soon.

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