Queuing up in Post-War Britain

This article traces a history of the queue in post-war Britain,both in relation to its changing social organization and itsshifting symbolism. In the immediate post-war period, with thecontinuation of rationing and shortages, the queue was exploitedfor its political capital by Conservative politicians like WinstonChurchill, who equated queuing with meddling socialism. As queuingceased to be an explicitly political issue in the 1950s and1960s, it began to be linked implicitly with the issue of national‘decline’, which dominated political discussionand social commentary from the late 1950s onwards. The queuesin banks and post offices, in particular, were seen as a symptomof the ‘British disease’ of badly trained, poorlymotivated employees and mediocre management. In the 1970s and1980s, the ‘dole queue’ also became part of a politicizedmythology of decline, although much of its imagery was borrowedfrom the 1930s. In the Thatcher era, queuing was increasinglytransformed by queue management theories and technologies. Beingprimarily market-led, this queuing revolution was an unevenphenomenon. In low-status public spaces, such as bus stops,people were still left to improvise their own queue discipline;and organizations like banks used queueless services to focuson valued clientele. The changing nature of the queue thus revealsmuch about the relationship between quotidian routine, politics,and the market in the post-war era. ^* J.Moran{at}livjm.ac.uk     

Architecture of Commercial Redevelopment in Post-War Britain

The architectural styles associated with the redevelopment of British central business districts since World War II are described, largely through an examination of two provincial centers, one an administrative, commercial and industrial town and the other a suburban town. The influence of the historical legacies with which the two centers entered the post-war period is emphasized and the succession of styles, especially neo-Georgian, modern and post-modern, is discussed in relation to the characteristics of the owners and architects of buildings. Owner-occupiers tended to adopt new architectural fashions more rapidly than speculative developers. After the mid-1950s increasing influence from outside the study centers was channelled primarily by national property companies, with the financial backing of insurance companies. Architectural styles diversified after the late 1960s, and within individual centers, though not nationally, they were the responsibility of a greater range of firms, mostly operating countrywide.     

Networking Health Research in Britain: The Post-War Childhood Leukaemia Trials

The treatment of childhood leukaemia is seen as a successfulhistorical example of the operation of the randomized controlledtrial and continues to inform contemporary policy making onsuch trials within health research. This article analyses thescientists’ ‘story of success’ through historicalresearch. It tells us about the organizational and professionalstructures of such research post-war in the United Kingdom,and examines the history of the cancer clinical trial throughthis particular example. The story reveals a more complex picturethan the ‘heroic’ one, with key developments inthe operation of post-war science, both in terms of its infrastructureand of its scientific networks, not least the rise of co-operativeworking among clinicians and the growing importance of statisticiansin medical research and practice. It also underlines differencesbetween the British and US approaches in which the role of onehealth system, the National Health Service, helped structuredifferent, initially less intensive, patterns of response.     

Britishness Reconsidered: Interplay Between Immigration and Nationality Legislation and Policymaking in Twenty-first Century Britain

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to clarify the dynamic interplay between immigration and nationality legislation and policymaking in post-imperial and pre-Brexit Britain. In 1981 and 2002, the years on which this paper focuses, three pieces of legislation were enacted marking watershed moments for British policy regarding immigration and nationality. The British Nationality Act of 1981 established ‘British citizenship’ in the statute book. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act of 2002 claimed to introduce new meaning and value to the acquisition of British citizenship by introducing a citizenship test and pledge. Furthermore, the British Overseas Territories Act of 2002 expanded the geographic scope of British citizenship by, in theory, providing citizenship to all those eligible in the existing dependent territories. Debates on the meaning of Britishness and the political projects linking immigration and nationality legislation to it, continue today in government, academia, and the media, all of whom are competing to have a tangible impact on policy. This paper addresses two questions. First, how can we account for the protracted nature of the debate on Britishness, and government efforts to enact immigration and nationality legislation based upon it? Second, if the meaning of Britishness has evolved over time, how has it been shaped by the course of these ongoing political debates?     

Final Strategy: The Post-War Grand Strategic Designs of Henry L. Stimson

Few men arguably shaped the trajectory of American foreign policy in the twentieth century as durably and profoundly as Henry L. Stimson. After all, Stimson was not only directly involved in many consequential decisions dealing with highly important matters of war and peace, but was also a major influence in the United States’ more proactive involvement in extra-territorial affairs. For Stimson, it was simply wishful thinking to presume that the United States could forever disengage itself from far-reaching occurrences in other parts of the globe. Accordingly, he thought it just as critical to anticipate international problems as it was to successfully resolve them afterwards, with the result that he became an ardent and early proponent of a much more sophisticated global strategy after the Second World War. In that context, however, most historians have primarily focused on Stimson's role in the development and use of the atomic bomb against Imperial Japan, though arguably less on his more sweeping grand strategic designs. Consequently, the present article will attempt to offer a more comprehensive analysis of Stimson's grand strategic designs, particularly as they related to his vision and reflections on the necessary ingredients of a more peaceful, stable and secure interstate system.     

Imperial Realism: Post-War IR Theory and Decolonisation

The paper reviews the record of realism in IR theory in relation to the process of decolonisation. It argues that despite being traditionally set against imperial adventures and opposed to the kind of idealism in which they are usually coated, realism was remarkably silent about decolonisation, at a time when most commentators thought that the emergence of newly independent countries was a more portentous event than even the cold war. It explains this silence by the structure of the post-war debate on decolonisation, largely monopolised by modernisation theorists and often confined to the precincts of international organisations, but also by the fact that IR theory had built-in arguments against the unlimited extension of sovereignty that allowed its practitioners to advocate a pragmatic support for imperial powers and reproducing classical tropes of imperial thought.     

Postgraduate Essay Prize Winner for 2005 * A New Look at the Affluent Worker: The Good Working Mother in Post-War Britain

The number of married women working outside their homes afterthe Second World War rose rapidly despite widespread criticismof working wives and mothers. This article discusses three maintrends associated with this change. First, many women reactedto the discourse criticizing working mothers by trying to changethe view of ideal motherhood as exclusively domestically bound.They defended their actions by arguing that a good mother wasnot solely one who stayed at the beck and call of her family,but one who nurtured their self-reliance and independence bynot being constantly available and provided goods and pleasuresotherwise out of reach of the family. Second, the criticismof working mothers combined with the dual burden that most womenfaced in choosing employment to create an unprecedented demandfor part-time jobs. The change in women's work force participationsince World War II is almost entirely attributable to the risein part-time workers. Third, because observers and the womenthemselves so often described wives’ work as providingextras for the family, the value of women's work was debased.This obscured women's role in creating the affluent societyand allowed the male breadwinner ideal to continue unaffecteddespite major social change, as the public still generally viewedmen as having primary responsibility for family support.     

Relaxed Bodies and Comfortable Clothes: Reframing Masculinity in Post-War Australia

As Australia's Second World War servicemen began returning home, many anticipated the pleasure of stepping out of their uniforms for the last time. Yet scholarship on the role clothing played in repatriation and post-war rehabilitation in Australia remains scarce. Exploring the post-war swing towards sportswear, the article considers the growing idea of relaxed bodies and the language of comfort that underpinned it. It argues that being attentive to men's dress allows us to engage with a reframing of attractive, able, white, heterosexual bodies that combined two icons of Australian masculinity – the Anzac and the athlete – into a more relaxed vision of manliness.     

Women's Interests and Empowerment: Gender Planning Reconsidered

This article looks at the empowerment approach in relation to issues of women and development. After explaining why this is currently the most fruitful perspective in the field of gender planning, it then goes on to explore two central problems of the empowerment approach. The first problem is the conceptualization of women's gender interests. The distinction between women's practical and strategic gender interests was introduced by Molyneux and popularized by Moser. It is argued here that this distinction is theoretically unfounded and empirically untenable. Secondly, gender planners tend towards a preference for simplified tools and quantifiable targets. Here it is argued that women's realities should not be bent into this planning framework but that instead planners, working from an empowerment perspective, should demonstrate flexibility and theoretical grounding, and be aware of the political dimensions of their work.     

战后美国保守主义思想重构

20世纪50、60年代,美国保守派在民主党自由派独步美国政坛的形势下对保守主义思想进行了重构,以便为自己重掌美国政治大权做好思想方面的准备。这一思想重构主要表现在两个方面:保守派外交思想的重构和保守派内政思想的重构。第一种重构使得保守派走出孤立主义的思想阴影,接受和支持干涉主义政策;第二种重构使得保守派在坚持自由市场和个人主义的同时,认同联邦政府对国民经济某种程度的干预及为此而推出的一部分福利政策,以张扬社会公正、维护道德秩序。战后保守主义的思想重构意义重大,其影响和作用贯穿于20世纪的最后30年,直至今日。