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.

FOREWORD

Geophysics ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles C. Bates
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bad Faith ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current State ◽  
Nuclear Tests ◽  
Test Ban

A decade ago, it would have been the rare geophysicist indeed who would have predicted that his specialty was destined to become a major topic of discussion between such world political leaders as Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, Prime Minister Macmillan of Great Britain, and Chairman Khrushchev of the USSR. Yet this has come to pass during the past six years, for in 1958 there started the continuing round of international negotiations directed towards the creation of an effective underground test-ban treaty. During the conduct of these negotiations, it has been repeatedly necessary to assess the current state-of-the-art in seismology and its sister geophysical sciences, for the only detectable signals known to propagate for several hundreds to thousands of miles from underground nuclear tests are seismic in nature. With the United States policy being only to seek an underground-test-ban agreement incorporating strong safeguards against acts of bad faith, it is important that the political safe-guards be backed up by those of a geophysical nature.

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.

scholarly journals Harnessing shared identities to mobilise resilient responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Vignoles ◽  
Zahira Jaser ◽  
Frankiebo Taylor ◽  
Evangelos Ntontis
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Mental Wellbeing ◽  
Personal Hygiene ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Protective Behaviours

Shared social identifications (family, community, nation, humanity) predict normative actions and psychological well-being, and can be invoked discursively by leaders to mobilise their followers. We illustrate the potential for harnessing shared identities to mobilise resilient public responses against COVID-19. Study 1, a discursive thematic analysis, contrasted Prime Minister Ardern’s use of identity-based rhetoric to mobilise New Zealanders, with Prime Minister Johnson’s use of individualistic appeals to the UK public. Study 2 explored which patterns of social identification predicted protective behaviours (personal hygiene, physical distancing), prosocial actions (helping proximal and distal others), and psychological wellbeing (mental wellbeing, depressive symptoms, anxiety), among 560 UK adults surveyed during lockdown. Our findings suggest how political leaders might beneficially use social identities in communications about extreme events.

scholarly journals Multipartidismo en el Parlamento británico y reforma del modelo Westminster ¿un ejemplo (una solución) para nuestro futuro sistema de partidos con representación parlamentaria? = Multiparty system in the british parliamen and the reform of the westminster

2015 ◽  
pp. 617
Author(s):  
Federico de Montalvo Jääskeläinen
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
British Government ◽  
Liberal Democrats ◽  
The Uk

In 2011 the British Parliament approved, within the context of the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, what can be seen as the most significant constitutional reform that the British government has undertaken in recent decades. This reform, called Fixed-term Parliament Act, 2011, restricts what was one of the main rights of the Prime Minister; dissolving the chamber in order to be able to call early elections. The reform is not motivated by an attempt to overcome the political crisis, similar to other European countries, that the UK is experiencing, but rather by the new demands that seem to derive from the current coalition government. It is certainly a reform that merits analysis by other nations, such as our own, in which fragmented parliaments are growing ever more likely, lacking strong majorities and posing problems that go beyond politics to the heart of the system.En 2011 el Parlamento británico aprobó, al amparo del acuerdo de coalición entre los conservadores y liberal-demócratas, la que puede considerarse la principal reforma constitucional a la que se ha visto sometido la forma de gobierno británica en las últimas décadas. Dicha reforma, bajo el nombre de Fixed-term Parliaments Act, 2011, supuso la supresión de una de las principales facultades del Primer Ministro, la de disolver la Cámara y convocar anticipadamente elecciones generales. Dicha reforma responde no tanto a la pretensión de superar la crisis política que vive el Reino Unido, similar a la que viven otros Estados europeos, sino a las nuevas exigencias que parecen derivarse del actual gobierno de coalición. En todo caso, se trata ciertamente de una reforma que merece la pena ser analizada desde otros Estados, como el nuestro, en los que se presagia un nuevo Parlamento muy fragmentado, sin mayorías de gobierno, con las consecuencias no sólo políticas que ello va seguramente a conllevar.

The Lady's Not for Returning: Memory, Mediation and Margaret Thatcher in Three Contemporary Biopics

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-178
Author(s):  
Caitlin Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
British Prime Minister ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Political Success

This article examines three recent biopics depicting former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: the single dramas Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley (BBC4, 2008) and Margaret (BBC2, 2009), and the UK/France co-production The Iron Lady (2011). Recognising their differences as indicative of divergent contexts of production, the article considers how each film similarly responds to industrial and social demands for 1980s-related British content but is forced to contend with the multitudinous incompatible readings inspired by Margaret Thatcher's heavily mediated iconography. The Long Walk to Finchley and Margaret, produced for domestic British television viewers, use strategies that encourage ambivalence, relying formally on ahistorical genres and narratively on self-conscious representation to distance themselves from docudrama and appease polarised viewers. However, The Iron Lady, a feature film destined for international theatrical release, broadens Thatcher's appeal by emphasising stylistic verisimilitude and structuring its narrative according to the subjective memories of a fictionalised Thatcher. This allows space for multiple interpretations: Thatcher's memories can be read as evidence of her political success, as the delusions of an ageing woman, or as indications of her struggle for power as a woman in a male-dominated sphere. The article suggests that all three productions foreground difficulties in recalling, in biopic form, a British politician whose motifs have been widely mediated and parodied and whose policies instil tremendously opposing sentiments and views.

scholarly journals The Politics of the Polish Peasant

1956 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-222
Author(s):  
Peter Brock
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Peasant Movement ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
Sixtieth Anniversary

The Polish Peasant Party celebrated its sixtieth anniversary last year. Founded in July 1895 in the provincial town of Lwow, its influence was at first confined to the parts of Poland then under Austrian rule. From modest beginnings, however, it eventually came to play a vital role in Polish politics. The important part taken by the peasant in Polish cultural life over the last half century has been largely the achievement of the political peasant movement. It was to give the reborn Polish state one of its greatest political leaders, Wincenty Witos, who three times held the office of Prime Minister between the two wars; and Witos's successor as leader of the Peasant Party was Mr Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, Prime Minister of the war-time Polish Government-in-Exile during some of the most crucial years in Polish history. Inflexibly opposed to the semi-authoritarian regime which ruled Poland during the 'thirties, the party likewise opposed the imposition of Communism on the country after the last war.

Islands in Distress

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Hemer
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
South Atlantic ◽  
The South ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Regional Context ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
The Uk

The short 1982 war between Argentina and Great Britain over the Malvinas/Falklands had far-reaching consequences for both countries. In Argentina, the disastrous defeat became the decisive blow to six years of military dictatorship. In Great Britain, the resounding victory was conceived as a personal triumph for the contested Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. This chapter interrogates the similarities of the symbolic significations attached to the islands (and the conflict), with mirroring myths of national renewal and adjoining crusade or romance-quest rescue scenarios, and argues that these have been more thoroughly scrutinised in Argentina than in the UK. Approaching the thirty-fifth anniversary of the war, the conditions on the islands and the South Atlantic regional context are resoundingly different, but the conflict remains unresolved.

DPJ's Political Leadership in Response to the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
TOMOHITO SHINODA
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Nuclear Reactors ◽  
Damage Control ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Local Boundary ◽  
Power Company ◽  
Significant Difference

AbstractThe 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami damaged the nuclear reactors in Fukushima. Prime Minister Naoto Kan took this crisis seriously, and made himself personally involved with damage control, especially during the first week. This study examines the responses to the incident by the prime minister's office.Universal wisdom is that crises are better handled at the level closest to which they occur. Shifting the decision making to the higher authority is needed when a crisis spills over the local boundary or when the local authority fails to deal with the situation. This is called ‘upscaling’.Frustrated by the lack of communication coming from the bureaucracy and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Kan upscaled the decision making and began micromanaging damage control. The upscaling, however, did not contribute to improvement in the accident situation in most cases. Even in one case, it exacerbated it.On the other hand, upscaling made a significant difference when the TEPCO officials considered withdrawing from the accident. By upscaling to the higher authority, Kan stopped their withdrawal. After the establishment of a joint headquarters with TEPCO, the political leaders, instead of upscaling, moved down to a closer level to the accident and successfully coordinated the recovery work.

scholarly journals Discours politique sur la pandémie du COVID-19: une étude de cas des allocutions télédiffusées de Sánchez et Macron en mars 2020

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-161
Author(s):  
Agustín Darias Marrero
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Culturally Diverse ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Medios De Comunicacion

Partiendo de los postulados del análisis crítico del discurso, de la pragmática y la retórica, se estudiarán los procedimientos discursivos en el discurso político pronunciado por los dirigentes políticos en el marco de la pandemia actual. Los discursos de los jefes de Estado y de Gobierno francés y español, retransmitidos por los medios de comunicación en marzo de 2020 y cuyo objetivo primordial era decretar el estado de emergencia, constituyen el corpus del presente estudio. La metodología se basará en diversas categorías de análisis de recursos discursivos y retóricos (presuposiciones, metáforas, paralelismos), entre los que la deixis desempeñará un papel crucial como mecanismo fundamental de anclaje del material verbal en su contexto extralingüístico. Los resultados muestran características discursivas de las ideologías políticas en el poder en dos países vecinos, aunque culturalmente diversos: la France en guerre de Macron y la España unida de Sánchez. This study draws on Critical Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, and Rhetoric to investigate some instances of political discourse within the framework of the current pandemic situation. In particular, I analyse the statements by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and French President Emmanuel Macron released in March 2020 and aimed at announcing the state of emergency in Spain and France respectively. Various categories of discursive and rhetorical resources are taken into account, such as presuppositions, metaphors, and parallels, among which deixis plays a crucial role as a fundamental mechanism for anchoring the verbal material in its extra-linguistic context. Strategic discursive functions are considered, above all in terms of persuasion and legitimacy, as expressed by the political leaders in question. The results highlight the discourse features of the political ideologies in power in two neighbouring, albeit culturally diverse countries: Macron’s France en guerre and Sánchez’s España unida.

scholarly journals Rhetoric Strategies in the Presidents` Speeches: Ukrainian versus English

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svitlana V. Nasakina ◽  
Natalia M. Kolisnichenko ◽  
Inna I. Rohalska-Yakubova ◽  
Nataliya I. Chepelyuk
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Speeches ◽  
Two Stages

The article focuses on the prominent stylistic devices of the language, gives their definitions, and examines the effectiveness of their use in the political speeches of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Presidents of Ukraine, and the President of the United States of America. It studies the rhetorical strategies that help the speakers to achieve the desired goal effectively, and add persuasiveness to the addresses. The article aims to reveal the similar tendencies in rhetorical speeches used by the political leaders. The research method, which includes two stages, has been presented. The first stage consisted of material collection. The second stage consisted of two sub-stages of the study and included the description, and the systematization of the obtained data. The significance of the research lies in the fact that the similar traits in political speeches in different countries have been defined. The further studying of the political speeches of the political elites can enable to deepen the knowledge about rhetorical strategies in the sociolinguistic aspect.

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