Reinventing the Labour Party, 1983–92

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Jobson
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
New Labour ◽  
The Political ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Pivotal Moments ◽  
The Past

This chapter examines the ways in which nostalgia shaped the political development of Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party between 1983 and 1992. It scrutinises claims, often made retrospectively by members of the New Labour project, that the Kinnock era was a period of limited modernisation. Moreover, it argues that Kinnock and his allies successfully negotiated Labour’s nostalgia in a manner that enabled them to reorient the party’s programmatic commitments away from the past. In this regard, the key turning point was the 1985-6 Jobs and Industry Campaign. When viewed through the lens of party nostalgia, other events, including Kinnock’s famous attack on the Militant Tendency at Labour’s annual conference in 1985, do not represent the kind of pivotal moments that academics have previously indicated they were. Furthermore, in 1992, despite significant policy reorientations, the party’s nostalgically imbued identity remained intact and unreformed.

‘White heat’ and the Labour Party, 1963–70

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Jobson
Keyword(s):  
Labour Party ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
The Past ◽  
Technological Age ◽  
Domestic Policies ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
New Britain ◽  
Held Back

This chapter identifies and analyses the ways in which Harold Wilson’s New Britain programme, frequently identified as the apex of modernity, was held back by the nostalgic opposition marshalled against it within the party. It argues that existing historical interpretations of the Labour Party between 1963 and 1970 as ‘progressive’ and ‘modernising’ require reconsideration and revaluation. From the outset, Labour’s rank- and-file members were generally suspicious of the ‘new’ scientific and technological age that Wilson outlined in his ‘White heat’ speech at Labour’s 1963 annual conference. A nostalgic attachment to the traditional industries of the past informed the party’s hostility to notions of change and modernity. As the 1960s wore on, the party membership’s nostalgic backlash against the 1964-70 Labour Governments’ domestic policies intensified. Nostalgia dictated the parameters within which the Labour leadership could operate. It shaped the options that were available to Wilson and his allies and forced them to make both rhetorical and substantive nostalgic concessions.

scholarly journals Moral Elaboration of Collective Trauma (Based on the Belarusian Protest 2020–2021)

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-86
Author(s):  
E. V. Belyaeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
The Political ◽  
Collective Trauma ◽  
Absolute Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Absolute

The article is devoted to comprehending the collective trauma of the Belarusian society, received during public protests against the falsification of the presidential elections in 2020–2021, and its moral elaboration, which takes place regardless of the political development of events. Moral study of the trauma is aimed at restoring moral values and social practices of their implementation. These values include: the absolute value of human life, truthfulness, non-violence, solidarity, fearlessness, justice, trust. Narratives and interpretations are created in advance, making possible subsequent models of reconciliation, realizing positive responsibility for the past, present and future of their country.

scholarly journals Umweltschutzrecht in Ungarn

2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 276-297
Author(s):  
László Fodor
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Environmental Legislation ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Fundamental Freedoms

Until 1990, Hungary’s environmental legislation had been broadly incomprehensive. Since then, several laws and judicial decisions were passed, and scholarly literature on this topic exists in abundance. However, as yet, there is no exhaustive evaluation of the development of the legal and legislative development of the country’s environmental law of the past thirty years. This article provides a historical overview of Hungary’s environmental law, followed by an outline of the developments of the 1990 s; it then presents Hungary’s post-millenial environmental law, shedding light on the first decade. The next chapter covers Hungary’s environmental law after 2010, which was a turning point in the country’s environmental policies, associated with the FIDESZ party’s accession to power and several controversial environmental policies. The article concludes that environmental law cannot be observed separately, but must always be reviewed in conjunction with, and in the context of, changes in the entire legal system and the political changes taking place in a country at large. Despite EU approximation of environmental law, there are still cases of Hungarian environmental law contradicting European domestic market fundamental freedoms and competition law.

The China Model

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Bell ◽  
Daniel A. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Political System ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political World ◽  
China Model ◽  
Political Model ◽  
Political Meritocracy

Westerners tend to divide the political world into “good” democracies and “bad” authoritarian regimes, but the Chinese political model does not fit neatly in either category. Over the past three decades, China has evolved a political system that can best be described as “political meritocracy.” This book seeks to understand the ideals and the reality of this unique political system. How do the ideals of political meritocracy set the standard for evaluating political progress (and regress) in China? How can China avoid the disadvantages of political meritocracy? And how can political meritocracy best be combined with democracy? This book answers these questions and more. Opening with a critique of “one person, one vote” as a way of choosing top leaders, it argues that Chinese-style political meritocracy can help to remedy the key flaws of electoral democracy. It discusses the advantages and pitfalls of political meritocracy, distinguishes between different ways of combining meritocracy and democracy, and argues that China has evolved a model of democratic meritocracy that is morally desirable and politically stable. It also summarizes and evaluates the “China model”—meritocracy at the top, experimentation in the middle, and democracy at the bottom—and its implications for the rest of the world. The book looks at a political system that not only has had a long history in China, but could prove to be the most important political development of the twenty-first century.

The Intellectuals in the Political Development of the New States

1960 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Shils
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Political Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human History ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
The Past ◽  
New States

The gestation, birth, and continuing life of the new states of Asia and Africa, through all their vicissitudes, are in large measure the work of intellectuals. In no state-formations in all of human history have intellectuals played such a role as they have in these events of the present century.In the past, new states were founded by military conquest, by the secession of ethnic groups led by traditional tribal and warrior chiefs, by the gradual extension of the power of the prince through intermarriage, agreement, and conquest, or by separation through military rebellion. In antiquity, the demand that subjects acknowledge the divinity of the Emperor was no more than a requirement that the legitimacy of the existing order be recognized.

From village autonomy to modern village administration among the Kulere of central Nigeria

Africa ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Frank
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Impact

Opening ParagraphIn studies of change in indigenous political organisations under the impact of colonial administration, the precolonial situation in Africa is often depicted as essentially static. Anthropologists tend to project a relatively ‘uninfluenced’ state of affairs from the early colonial period into the past. Change seems to occur under European influence. This picture is the result less of the conviction of the authors that conditions were static than of a lack of information on precolonial development. This is especially true for ‘acephalous’ societies; centralised societies often possess detailed traditions concerning their institutional history. In the following case, of the political development of a village in the Nigerian Middle Belt, it has been possible to record precolonial changes of organisation in an acephalous society.

Reborn

Jimmy Reid ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 223-242
Author(s):  
W.W.J. Knox ◽  
A. McKinlay
Keyword(s):  
Labour Party ◽  
New Labour ◽  
General Election ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Affiliation ◽  
Nationalist Party ◽  
Before And After

A new decade, a new political affiliation? Chapter eight examines Reid’s growing disillusion of Labour, particularly Tony Blair’s New Labour. Reid objected to Labour’s lurch towards the political centre and, much like his positioning on the miners’ strike, he faced intense criticism of other members and supporters of the Labour party for voicing his opposition. In this final chapter, we reflect on the political contexts of New Labour before and after the 1997 general election, focussing on the particular events on which Reid was publicly vocal, as well as Reid’s exploration into other Scottish socialist organisations such as the Scottish Socialist Party and the Scottish Nationalist Party, of which he later became a member.

Prentice and the Newham North-East Constituency: The Making of Historical Myths

1981 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
North East ◽  
Local Party

This article is an essay in political historiography showing how historical myths are created using the political development of Reg Prentice and his relations with the Newham North-East Constituency Labour Party as a case study. It shows how misapprehension about sources of Labour Party information facilitate myth-making and looks at the three central myths involved—the Activists' story, the Establishment's story, and Prentice's story. It examines the options open to Prentice following upon his rejection by his local party and traces his political development and his relations with his constituency between 1970 and 1979. The myths are exposed by reference to the chronology of events and the salient facts. Prentice is shown to be a ‘rebel for position’; and the left-wing takeover of the Newham Party is established. The tactical thinking behind Prentice's moves is also discussed.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Jobson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter argues that nostalgia has shaped Labour’s political development since 1951 in a number of fundamental ways. Labour’s nostalgia-identity has revolved around positively idealised memories of a late nineteenth and early twentieth century heroic male traditional industrial working class. This nostalgia has proven to be problematic in the face of the social and economic changes that have taken place in Britain. It has limited the extent to which modernising agendas could be pursued, defined the parameters within which senior Labour figures could operate and determined the options available to the party. At certain times, Labour has also actively sought to reinstate and restore nostalgic visions of the past in the present. This chapter explores the significance of this book’s findings for the contemporary Labour Party and it outlines and problematizes potential future developments.

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