Browse

Why did Britain invade Iraq in March 2003? Debate around Iraq focuses often on illegality, lies, incompetence, or the personal psychology of Tony Blair. ‘Operation Telic’ is often presented as a war of bad faith, waged by elites who had unspeakable secret motives. Beyond fixations with ‘dodgy dossiers’, the flaws of individual leaders, or intelligence failure, Iraq was a real ideological crusade, made by people who were true believers. Deploying primary documents and retrospective testimonies of participants, Blunder reconstructs the assumptions underlying decisions, the policy ‘world’ that participants inhabited 2001–2003, and the way decisions were made. Contrary to much of the existing literature, this book puts ideas in the centre of the story. As the book argues, Britain’s war in Iraq was caused by bad ideas that were dogmatically and widely held. Three ideas in particular formed the war’s intellectual foundations: the notion of the undeterrable, fanatical rogue state; the vision that the West’s path to security is to break and remake states; and the conceit that by paying the ‘blood price’, Britain could secure influence in Washington DC. These issues matter, because although the Iraq War happened years ago, it is still with us. As well as its severe consequences for regional and international security, the ideas that powered the war persist in Western security debate. If all wars are fought twice, first on the battlefield and the second time in memory, this book enters the battle over what Iraq means now, and what we should learn.

In the latter part of the 19th century, Walter Bagehot wrote a classic account of the British constitution as it had developed during Queen Victoria's reign. He argued that the late Victorian constitution was not at all what people thought it was. In this book, the author argues that the same is true at the beginning of this century. Most people are aware that a series of major constitutional changes has taken place, but few recognize that their cumulative effect has been to change entirely the nature of Britain's constitutional structure. The old constitution has gone. The author insists that the new constitution is a mess, but one that we should probably try to make the best of. This book is neither a reference book nor a textbook. Like Bagehot's classic, it is written with wit and mordant humour — by someone who is a journalist and political commentator as well as a distinguished academic. Highly charged issues that remain to be settled concern the relations between Scotland and England and the future of the House of Lords. A reformed House of Lords, the author fears, could wind up comprising ‘a miscellaneous assemblage of party hacks, political careerists, clapped-out retired or defeated MPs, has-beens, never-weres and never-could-possibly-bes’. The book is the product of a lifetime's reflection on British politics and essential reading for anyone interested in how the British system has changed and how it is likely to change in future.

Despite a recent decline in voter turnout, British general elections are still the centrepiece of Britain's liberal democracy and their results make a real difference to every British citizen. They command strong media interest long before their dates are announced and even uneventful campaigns dominate the headlines. The 2010 general election saw the first direct televised debates between the main party leaders, adding further interest to a battle which was always likely to be close. The result was a ‘hung parliament’ and the first British coalition government since 1945. However, as this book shows these were only the latest manifestations of a transformation in British elections which began in the early 1960s. While some election rituals remain intact — the counting of votes by hand, the solemn declaration of individual constituency results and, most importantly, the peaceful handover of power if the incumbent party loses — almost everything of significance has changed. Voters have very different attitudes; fewer of them have party loyalties which are more than skin deep, and they tend to base their choices on ‘short-term’ factors such as the perceived competence of the parties and the image of the leader. The parties themselves are barely recognisable from the institutions of 1964 — not least because their membership figures have dwindled dramatically. Election campaigns are now heavily centralised and focus obsessively on a handful of target seats.

This book examines the transformation of governing arrangements in Britain from stagnation in the first two-thirds of the 20th century to hyper-innovation. These two phases were connected by crisis, namely, a crisis of economic policy and the crisis of the content of rule itself. The collapse of the club system is also discussed to explain the reasons behind the hostility towards the new regulatory state.

This book analyzes the relationship between liberalism and empire from the perspective of political economy. It investigates the formative impact of “colonial capitalism” on the historical development of British liberal thought between the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. It argues that liberalism as a political language developed through early modern debates over the contested meanings of property, exchange, and labor, which it examines respectively in the context of colonial land appropriations in the Americas, militarized trading in South Asia, and state-led proletarianization in Australasia. The book contends that the British Empire could be extolled as the “empire of liberty”—that is, the avatar of private property, free trade, and free labor—only on the condition that its colonial expropriation, extraction, and exploitation were “disavowed” and dissociated from the increasingly liberal conception of its capitalist economy. It identifies exemplary strategies of disavowal in the works of John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Edward G. Wakefield, who, as three liberal intellectuals of empire, attempted to navigate the ideological tensions between the liberal self-image of Britain and the violence that shaped its imperial economy. Challenging the prevalent tendency to study liberalism and empire around an abstract politics of universalism and colonial difference, the book discloses the ideological contradictions internal to Britain’s imperial economy and their critical influence on the formation of liberalism. It concludes that the disavowal of the violence constitutive of capitalist relations in the colonies has been crucial for crafting a liberal image for Anglophone imperialism and more generally for global capitalism.

This book explores how the governmental elites in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa understand their Westminster system. It examines in detail four interrelated features of Westminster systems: firstly, the increasing centralization in collective, responsible cabinet government; second, the constitutional convention of ministerial and collective responsibility; third, the role of a professional, non-partisan public service; and finally, parliament's relationship to the executive. The book explains the changes that have occurred in the Westminster model by analyzing four traditions: royal prerogative, responsible government, constitutional bureaucracy, and representative government. It suggests that each tradition has a recurring dilemma, between centralization and decentralization, party government and ministerial responsibility, professionalization and politicization, and finally elitism and participation. The chapter goes on to argue that these dilemmas recur in four present-day debates: the growth of prime ministerial power, the decline in individual and collective ministerial accountability, politicization of the public service, and executive dominance of the legislature. It concludes by identifying five meanings of, or narratives about, Westminster. Firstly, ‘Westminster as heritage’ — elite actors' shared governmental narrative understood as both precedents and nostalgia. Second, ‘Westminster as political tool’ — the expedient cloak worn by governments and politicians to defend themselves and criticize opponents. Third, ‘Westminster as legitimizing tradition’ — providing legitimacy and a context for elite actions, serving as a point of reference to navigate this uncertain world. Fourth, ‘Westminster as institutional category’ — a useful descriptor of a loose family of governments with shared origins and characteristics. Finally, ‘Westminster as an effective political system’ —a more effective and efficient political system than consensual parliamentary governments. Westminster is a flexible family of ideas that is useful for many purposes and survives, even thrives, because of its meaning in use to elite actors.

In posing challenging questions about the relationship between state and society, theories of governance have promoted fierce debate regarding the capacity of government in an increasingly crowded policy terrain. This book analyses the ways in which national governments have responded to the raft of challenges to capacity associated with the governance debate. In doing so, it considers the impact of new policy challenges such as the earth’s changing climate, and the increasing necessity of securing individual behavioural change. To illuminate these issues, the book focuses on the Labour Government’s attempts to steer the British state, offering the first in-depth analysis of the Public Service Agreement framework—a target-based delivery instrument, underpinned by the principles of centralized steering and accountability, cross-Whitehall collaboration, and operational autonomy—as a critical tool of strategic governance. As the story of Labour’s approach to governing through the Public Service Agreement framework unfolds, a range of important themes emerge regarding the extent to which an increasingly crowded policy arena has engendered complexity and fragmentation at all stages of the policy process; and in turn, the extent to which a recognition of such challenges permeated the political, cultural, and institutional norms of government. Yet, despite the picture of a hollow state painted in many accounts of governance, the book reveals how the unique resource advantages and democratic legitimacy afforded to central governments equip them with the potential to redefine their role and preserve their centrality.

What do we really mean when we say a political party has changed? And exactly what is it that drives that change? Political scientists working in the comparative tradition have come up with a general explanation that revolves around the role of election defeats and loss of office, and around changes of leader and factions. But how well does that explanation cope when subjected to a historically-grounded and therefore robust examination? This book attempts to answer that question by subjecting the common wisdom to a real-world, over-time test using half a century in the life of one of the world’s oldest and most successful political parties to provide a series of in-depth case studies. What do the periods spent in both opposition and government by the British Conservatives since 1945 tell us about what drives parties to change their sales-force, the way they organise, and the policies they come up with? Using internal papers, memos and minutes of meetings from party archives, along with historical and contemporary accounts, memoirs and interviews, this book maps the extent of change and then explores what may have driven it. The conventional wisdom, it turns out, is not necessarily wrong but incomplete, requiring both qualification and supplementation. This approachably-written book suggests when, how and why.

The Scottish referendum of 2014 represented a rare event in advanced industrial democracies. It posed a simple question about whether Scotland should be independent, but this choice hid a spectrum of possibilities and public opinion tended towards a middle ground. The campaign focused on a broad range of economic and social issues beyond independence and engaged a wide swathe of society. The protagonists included the two governments; all the political parties; the official Yes and No campaigns; social movements; civil society; academic researchers; and international actors. Knowing how public opinion was divided, the two sides sought the middle ground, offering respectively an attenuated version of independence and a promise of more devolution. This book examines the key issues and how they were framed and debated including economic issues; public spending; the currency; welfare reform; Europe; and the nature of a future constitution. A consistent theme is that of risk and uncertainty, which both sides sought to use to their own benefit. It concludes with the results of a survey showing the impact of the debate and the critical importance of risk in the decision of the key voters. Public opinion remained divided, with the largest segment of the population still favouring a third way between union and independence.

The delegation of functions and responsibilities to quasi-autonomous bodies operating with a significant degree of autonomy arguably empowers governments to address a wide range of social issues simultaneously without having to be involved with the minutiae of day-to-day socio-political interactions. Delegation therefore provides a structural and esoteric capacity beyond the cognitive and physical limits of politicians. There is nothing wrong with delegation as such. The problem relates to the failure to manage delegation in Britain. And yet we actually know very little about how the state beyond the core actually operates, how many bodies exist, what they do, how they are recruited, or why they were created. These gaps in our knowledge are all the more problematic in light of recent pronouncements by politicians at the national and European levels that ‘depoliticization’ is a central strand of their approach to governing. This book seeks to fill these gaps in our knowledge while at the same time cultivating a more balanced or sophisticated approach to the study of delegation. Delegated public bodies as they have been used as a tool of governance in the past should not be confused with how they might be used in the future. This book draws upon research conducted within the very core of the British political system during a Whitehall Fellowship within the Cabinet Office. It argues that the British state is ‘walking without order’ due to a general acceptance of the logic of delegation without any detailed or principled consideration of the administrative of democratic consequences of this process.

Although there is no doubt that the constitution has been significantly reformed since the election of New Labour in May 1997 the degree to which these reforms have altered the nature of democracy in the United Kingdom remains highly contested. A major problem within this debate is that it has become polarized around a binary distinction between power‐sharing and power‐hoarding models of democracy when the contemporary situation is actually far more complex. This book draws upon theories and methods from comparative political analysis in order to argue and then demonstrate three central and inter‐related arguments. Firstly, that the distinctive element of ‘New’ Labour's approach to constitutional engineering is not that it has shifted the nature of democracy in the United Kingdom from one model to another but has instead sought to apply different models at the periphery and core: bi‐constitutionality. Secondly, that contemporary evidence of both increasing levels of public disengagement from conventional politics and falling levels of public trust in politicians, political institutions and political processes originate from the ‘expectations gap’. This ‘gap’ is created by the process of political competition artificially increases public expectations; only for these expectations to be dashed as the elected party either seeks to renege upon certain pre‐election commitments or fails to achieve them. Finally, democracy in the United Kingdom is currently drifting. The old rules do not appear to suit the new game, and yet the government continues to insist that the old rules still apply. The critical challenge for any future government, of any political complexion, will be to articulate a new form of constitutional morality with the capacity to clarify exactly what its reforms in the sphere of constitutional reform and democratic renewal are seeking to achieve.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland has undergone a remarkable transformation. Having been a party of opposition and protest for decades following its foundation in 1971, the DUP is now the leading party of government in the region, one which dominates unionist politics. The party moved from a religiously influenced determination to face down the ‘enemies of Ulster’ to acceptance of the need to share power with those ‘enemies’ in the form of Sinn Féin. In so agreeing, via the 2006 St Andrews Agreement, the DUP secured the sharing of power first attempted in the 1998 Belfast Agreement. It was a deal which startled many of even the most loyal followers of the DUP’s leader for decades, the Reverend Ian Paisley, but one which has stuck under his successor, Peter Robinson Yet, despite its colourful past and contemporary prominence, the DUP has rarely been the subject of detailed academic analysis. This unique book is the first to examine who are the DUP’s members and explore what they believe. Drawing upon unprecedented access given by the party, including a Leverhulme Trust-funded survey of the membership and over one hundred detailed interviews, this book analyses what makes individuals join the DUP; who those members are in terms of age, gender, and religion; what they think of the political institutions and power-sharing; attitudes to policing changes and dissident threats and what issues, constitutional or otherwise, concern them most.

For a topic that until recently was presumed not to exist, English nationalism has transformed into an apparently obvious explanation for the Brexit result in England. Subsequent opinion polls have also raised doubts about the extent of continuing English commitment to the union of the United Kingdom itself. Yet, even as Englishness is apparently reshaping Britain’s place in the world and—perhaps—the state itself, it remains poorly understood, in part because of its unfamiliarity. It has long been assumed that nationalism is a feature of political life in the state’s periphery—Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland—but not its English core. Another barrier to understanding bas been the relative lack of public attitudes data with which to explore the nature of English nationalist sentiment.This book draws on data from a survey vehicle—the Future of England Survey—specially established in 2011 to facilitate the exploration of patterns of national identity in England and their political implications. On the basis of these data, Englishness offers new arguments about the nature and effect of English nationalism on British politics, as well as how Britishness operates in different parts of Britain. Crucially, it demonstrates that English nationalism is emphatically not a rejection of Britain and Britishness. Rather, English nationalism combines a sense of grievance about England’s place within the UK with a fierce commitment to a particular vision of Britain’s past, present, and future. Understanding its Janus-faced nature—both England and Britain, as it were—is key not only to understanding English nationalism, but also to understanding the ways in which it is transforming British politics.

UK central government is said to have been one of the most prolific reformers of its public administration over the past few decades, a poster-child of ‘New Public Management’. Successive reforms were accompanied by lofty claims that the changes would transform the way government worked. Government would become more efficient (delivering services more economically, for example by competition or outsourcing) or more effective and user-friendly (more responsive to citizens, for example by clearer performance frameworks, better use of information technology), or both. Despite much debate over government reforms, however, there has been remarkably little systematic evaluation of the cost and performance of UK government over the past thirty years. This book tests the claims of both proponents and detractors of government modernization programmes by carefully compiling and analysing data relating to cost and performance of UK central government over three decades. It shows that, confounding expectations of both sets of commentators, not only did the reform efforts largely fail to cut costs, but the increased spending did not result in greater fairness and consistency in government decisions. This book also shows that, despite the rhetoric of ‘evidence-based policy’, the way in which official records change over time makes such evidence increasingly volatile and hard to evaluate. Its findings pose an important challenge for public management in the 2010s and 2020s, when demands for government to cost less and work better are likely to intensify.

Literary claims to ownership of the third culture of sociology are considered and the rise of scientific method traced. The institutional history is summarized from the establishment of a chair of sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1907. Phases of expansion (1950–67), revolt (1968–75) and uncertainty (1976–2000) are described. Analysis of the professors—their origins, careers and fame—is presented. A content analysis of three leading British journals of sociology is reported. An epilogue is finally added of eight essays by well‐known sociologists—A. H. Halsey, Z. Bauman, C. Crouch, A. Giddens, A. Oakley, J. Platt, W.G. Runciman, and J. Westergaard.

After three hundred years, the Anglo-Scottish Union is in serious difficulty. This is not because of a profound cultural divide between England and Scotland but because recent decades have seen the rebuilding of Scotland as a political community while the ideology and practices of the old unionism have atrophied. Yet while Britishness is in decline, it has not been replaced by a dominant ideology of Scottish independence. Rather Scots are looking to renegotiate union to find a new place in the Isles, in Europe and in the world. There are few legal, constitutional or political obstacles to Scottish independence, but an independent Scotland would need to forge a new social and economic project as a small nation in the global market-place, and there has been little serious thinking about the implications of this. Short of independence, there is a range of constitutional options for renegotiating the Union to allow more Scottish self-government on the lines that public opinion seems to favour. The limits are posed not by constitutional principles but by the unwillingness of English opinion to abandon their unitary conception of the state. The end of the United Kingdom may be provoked, not by Scottish nationalism but by English unionism.

Seeks to answer the question `How does monarchy function in a modern democracy?’ Since the British Constitution is so heavily dependent upon history, the question can only be answered historically. The rules that regulate Britain's constitutional monarchy and the so‐called personal prerogatives are then discussed. Three twentieth‐century constitutional crises in which the authority of the sovereign was in question are then analysed. Finally, the book considers how the monarchy is financed, and the relationship between the monarchy and the Church of England and the monarchy and the Commonwealth. The concluding chapter considers the future of constitutional monarchy.

This book is a pioneering study of how multiculturalism interacts with sub-state nationalism in Britain. It gives equal attention to Scotland’s largest ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ minorities: ethnic Pakistanis (almost all of them Muslim) and English immigrants; and to the Islamophobia and Anglophobia of majority Scots. Rising Scottish self-consciousness could have threatened both these minorities. But in reality, problems proved to be solutions, integrating rather than alienating. In the eyes of the minorities, the devolution of power to a Scottish Parliament has made Scots at once more proud and less xenophobic. English immigrants also felt that devolution has defused tensions, calmed frustrations, and forced Scots to blame themselves rather than others for their problems. Muslims suffered increased harassment after 9/11, although less in Scotland than elsewhere. Consciously or unconsciously, they continued to use Scottish identities and even Scottish nationalism as tools of integration. Conversely, nationalism in Scotland did not increase the majority’s Islamophobia as it did in England and elsewhere. The book is based on extensive quotations from focus-group discussions with minorities, in-depth interviews with elites, and statistical analysis of large-scale surveys of minorities and majorities.