A Pocket Borough? Reformed Politics in Ripon, 1832–67

This article examines the political history of the parliamentary borough of Ripon between the Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Second Reform Act of 1867. It challenges the notion that Ripon remained a ‘pocket borough’ during this era; rather, the Reform Act rendered Ripon's politics much more open, vibrant and participatory than they had been during the ‘unreformed’ era. In demonstrating this, the article calls into question the alleged prevalence of ‘pocket boroughs’ in the reformed era.     

Tactical Flexibility: Libyan Foreign Policy under Qadhafi, 1969–2004*

On September 1, 1969, a group of junior Libyan Army officers took control of the Libyan government in a bloodless coup d'état. After the coup, the group formed the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), chaired by Muammar al‐Qadhafi. In the four decades following, Libya faced numerous foreign policy challenges. The Qadhafi regime took on a distinctly anticolonial flavor that mirrored the revolutionary political trends of Egypt under of Gamal Abdul Nasser. This change in foreign policy posture shook Libya's relations with the United States and the United Kingdom and initiated the degradation of Libyan–Western ties. Under Qadhafi's leadership, Libya chose an ideological path for that focused on the strengthening of sovereignty while pursuing policies of unity and anti‐imperialism. This often put Libya at loggerheads with the West, and at times with its neighbors. Nevertheless, Qadhafi maintained popularity among his constituency. ¹ His domestic fame was the product of a carefully constructed persona that gave him the charismatic appeal necessary to maintain leadership during the latter quarter of the twentieth century and into the new millennium. Publicly, Qadhafi highlighted the similarities between himself and Libya's rural working class. He lived in a tent, and wore modest clothing. He fancied himself a devout Muslim, and praised the wisdom of the Libyan masses. He connected with his constituency through rhetoric that illustrated the stability of his policies over time, and their connection to the ideas that originally made him popular. This argues that the source of Qadhafi's charismatic power lay in his rhetoric, which connected Libya's foreign policy decisions to his foreign policy vision, the basis of his charismatic leadership. Qadhafi articulated his foreign policy vision during his first major speech to the Libyan people in September 1969, and he referred to it time and again when speaking about major Libyan foreign policy decisions. To demonstrate, this article describes the basis of Qadhafi's leadership authority and defines the parameters of his vision. Then Qadhafi's rhetoric surrounding major shifts in Libyan foreign policy is analyzed to show its congruence with his foreign policy vision. The rhetoric surrounding the Libya–Egypt war, the end of Libya's Chad intervention, Libya's surrendering of the two Lockerbie bombing suspects to be tried under Western authority, and Qadhafi's denunciation of the weapons of mass destruction programs—all major shifts in Libyan foreign policy—demonstrate how Qadhafi was able to maintain a single message, and thus his authority, over his first 35 years in power based on values established in the early days of his revolution. The flexibility of his vision enabled Qadhafi to maintain authority, while tactically adjusting Libyan foreign policy positions.     

Contextualising ‘Turkification’: nation‐building in the late Ottoman Empire, 1908–18*

Abstract. This article offers an analytical framework for understanding the peculiarities of the Ottoman Empire's nationality policies in the second constitutional period (1908–18). It will examine the extent to which the nationality policies of the Young Turks can be perceived as a nation‐building project, and question whether it is reasonable to apply the term ‘Turkification’ to these policies. The primary goal of the paper in this context is to identify how and to what degree a nationalist outlook shaped imperial polices of the late Ottoman Empire. Engaging in a critical dialogue with the existing historiography, the article argues that ‘Turkification’ should be conceptualised solely as a project of nation‐building in the multiethnic Ottoman Empire. It was only one of the policies employed by the imperial elite and it coexisted with other imperial policies ranging from centralisation to decentralisation, assimilation to dissimilation and integration to homogenisation. The paper concludes by contending that only by contextualising and understanding this complexity and only by taking geographical variations into account can the peculiarity of ‘Turkification’ be grasped.     

Conservatives,the Constitution and the Quest for a ‘Representative’ House of Lords, 1911–35*

This article presents a new interpretation of Conservative attitudes towards house of lords' reform in the early 20th century. Coinciding, as it did, with the introduction of universal adult suffrage, the campaign to reform and strengthen the second chamber has traditionally been understood as a reaction against democracy. Conversely, this article, emphasizing the politics rather than policies of reform, argues that many Conservatives sought to establish a legitimate role for a second chamber within the new democratic settlement and that the campaign for reform is, consequently, better understood as a constitutional means of ‘making safe’, rather than resisting, mass democracy. The account sheds new light on how the impulse behind reform was frequently rooted in a commitment to democracy, how reform commanded the support of a wide cross section of the Conservative parliamentary party, and why the reform campaign had folded by the early 1930s. In doing so, it reframes an important episode that helped close the long‐19th‐century tradition of constitutional reform in British politics.     

Parliament and the Committee for Accommodation, 1644–6*

With the emerging conflict between the presbyterian and independent ministers in 1643–4, the independent MPs recognized a need for parliamentary action to secure religious liberty in post‐war establishment of a uniform state church. The lead in this was given by such prominent figures as Oliver St John and Oliver Cromwell, who set up a committee for accommodation in autumn 1644 to establish legal safeguards for godly separatists. This article seeks to demonstrate that the lay members from the Houses participated in the proceedings of the committee with as much fervour and awareness of the issue under consideration as the clerical members, employing procedure as a tool of policy making. Their often extended debates offer the historian a rare opportunity to explore in detail a committee at work during this period. The debates show that the scope of religious liberty as envisioned by the majority of MPs was decidedly limited. Furthermore, the article asserts that the committee became an arena for both genuine efforts at compromise and expressions of factional interest and that its proceedings were inextricably bound up with the wider Westminster politics and the vicissitudes of war. Thus, the committee proceedings shed light on the emergence of divisions in parliament and how these metamorphosed over the course of the revolutionary decade. Ultimately, the failure of the committee's enterprise contributed to polarisation within the godly community and to its disintegration.