Political marketing and the British Labour Party 1994-2010: Applying the product life-cycle model to a political party

<p>This thesis explores the merits of applying a marketing model, the product life-cycle model, to a political party. The product life-cycle model details a product during its introduction, growth, maturity and decline cycles. For this thesis I apply this model to the British Labour Party between 1994 and 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The product life-cycle model, adapted to political science from the political marketing literature, shows that a political party does go through an introduction, growth, maturity and decline phase. To avoid moving into the decline phase, a political party must learn how to rejuvenate during the maturity cycle. This thesis concludes that the product life-cycle model does have merits when applied to political parties. In the case of the British Labour Party, it began with a strong market-orientation, but the longer it stayed in power this market-orientation shifted. The New Labour brand and its primary brand agent, Tony Blair, were both strong assets to the party. However, during the lifetime of the product these assets became liabilities. The longer that New Labour stayed in power, the more it shifted away from its relationship with the political market. The product life-cycle model should be tested in other political systems to further strengthen its explanatory power.</p>

Political marketing and the British Labour Party 1994-2010: Applying the product life-cycle model to a political party

<p>This thesis explores the merits of applying a marketing model, the product life-cycle model, to a political party. The product life-cycle model details a product during its introduction, growth, maturity and decline cycles. For this thesis I apply this model to the British Labour Party between 1994 and 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The product life-cycle model, adapted to political science from the political marketing literature, shows that a political party does go through an introduction, growth, maturity and decline phase. To avoid moving into the decline phase, a political party must learn how to rejuvenate during the maturity cycle. This thesis concludes that the product life-cycle model does have merits when applied to political parties. In the case of the British Labour Party, it began with a strong market-orientation, but the longer it stayed in power this market-orientation shifted. The New Labour brand and its primary brand agent, Tony Blair, were both strong assets to the party. However, during the lifetime of the product these assets became liabilities. The longer that New Labour stayed in power, the more it shifted away from its relationship with the political market. The product life-cycle model should be tested in other political systems to further strengthen its explanatory power.</p>

Leadership election reform in the British Labour party: democratisation or power struggle?

This article examines the impact of reforms on the outcome of Labour party leadership contests since the premiership of Tony Blair. From a theoretical perspective, these reforms are characterised by a tension between a general trend towards increasing “democratisation” of political parties and the power interests of intra-party actors. While there have been significant changes to both the nomination stage and the final ballot, the impact of these changes has to be strongly qualified. Instead of a major “democratisation” through targeted and deliberate reform measures, simple shifts in the power structure between strategic actors are more prominent among reform effects. Meanwhile, the trend towards “democratisation” in relation to the final ballot stage was largely driven by the massive membership surge since 2015, as well as low-key reform measures unconnected to handing ordinary party members more influence over the election process.

Pop-socialism: A new radical left politics? Evaluating the rise and fall of the British and Italian left in the anti-austerity age

This article draws from primary research – including 46 semi-structured interviews – to provide a comparative analysis of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the British Labour Party between 2015 and 2020, and Nichi Vendola’s leadership of the Italian radical left between 2010 and 2015. It is claimed that both cases represent a new form of left politics – which we term pop-socialism – that combines popular-democratic appeals to the ‘people’ with the traditional class-based demands of democratic socialism. This contributes to recent literature on radical left politics and left populism by providing an insight into the underexplored relationship between popular-democratic and class politics. Moreover, the article provides an important empirical account of Corbyn and Vendola’s rapid mobilisation but also their equally abrupt decline.

The Impact of the British Labour Party on the Dissidence of Milovan Djilas 1950–1958

The article analyses the influence of the leadership of the British Labour Party on the first Cold War dissident, Milovan Djilas. Up until his dissidence in 1954, the main Yugoslav official for official relations with the British Left was Djilas. He had many contacts with the members of the British Labour Party such as Morgan Phillips, Aneurin Bevan and Jennie Lee. While many of these contacts were professional, Djilas established a firm friendship with Bevan, under whose influence Djilas gradually abandoned communism and embraced the Labour movement. When he called for another party in Yugoslavia (one similar to the Labour Party), he was condemned by Tito’s regime.

The British Labour Party and the antisemitism crisis: Jeremy Corbyn and image repair theory

This article utilises the work of William Benoit on image repair theory as a framework for examining the crisis communication of Jeremy Corbyn in relation to antisemitism within the Labour Party. By examining the self-defence rhetoric of Corbyn on the antisemitism allegations, the article identifies the following. Of the five strategies for crisis communication, Corbyn was overly reliant on denial, evading responsibility and reducing offensiveness; struggled to explain his attempts at corrective action; and reverted to accepting responsibility – that is, apologies – reluctantly and belatedly. Utilising existing perspectives on the most effective strategies for image repair – which emphasise the importance of effective corrective action and accepting responsibility at the expense of denial, evading responsibility and reducing effectiveness – the article argues that Corbyn undermined his own attempts at image repair in the crisis that defined his leadership.

Thomas Carlyle and the Australasian Labour Movement

The influence of the great Scottish man of letters Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) on the British labour movement is well known. Drawing largely on the Australasian labour press, this article explores the influence of Carlyle on the intellectual culture of the Australasian labour movement, demonstrating that Australasian labour activists (including many Scots) derived considerable inspiration from Carlyle, with regard to idealist ethics and the nobility of work, social criticism, and constructive political thought. In all these regards, Carlyle provided not only ideas, but also language, rhetoric, and cultural authority. In this sense, Carlyle was just as crucial an influence on the Australasian labour movement as he was on the British labour movement.

‘The Lingua Franca of the Bangle'

Wilkinson’s approach to imperialism provides significant insight into her political ideas. For much of the interwar period, she perceived a causal link between imperialism—which she understood as a product of late capitalism—and war. This chapter focuses upon her visit to India in autumn 1932 on behalf of the India League. Using the British and Indian press as well as India Office sources, it examines the complex relationships involved in this visit between the delegation, the Indian nationalist movement, the British and Indian state as well as the British Labour movement and the reception of Indian affairs in Britain. In this case, culturalist approaches, stressing the mutual comprehensibility, the prejudices and assumption of superiority underplay the micro-level complexity of transnational contentious politics. Wilkinson used several techniques to overcome the distance between Indian and British workers in her journalism and campaigning for Indian independence regarding the trip. The trip had a lasting significance for her attitude to the possibilities of revolution as well as the misplaced complacency about British immunity to fascism. Indeed, she incorporated her Indian experiences into her campaigning frames for social mobilisation related to women, Jarrow and anti-fascism.