Blair's project in retrospect

New Labour came into being as an attempt to frame a successor project to Thatcherism, but in practice it has proved to be a continuation of it. Blair's project was to achieve hegemony for Labour by blending free market policies with a concern for social cohesion. He accepted the new economic settlement that Thatcher had established, but believed it could be made more sustainable if it was tempered with a concern for social justice. Within the Labour Party his project was set in terms of modernizing social democracy, but in the country as a whole it was perceived as a variation on One Nation Toryism—a strand in the British political tradition which the Conservatives had seemingly forgotten. In fact, Blair's domestic agenda has had more in common with Thatcher's than with either social democracy or One Nation Toryism. There were significant constitutional reforms in the first term, but privatization and the injection of market mechanisms into hitherto autonomous institutions has remained the central thrust of policy. Blair has been committed to modernizing Britain, but his conception of modernization was a variation on Thatcher's. In one centrally important area, Blair diverges from Thatcher: he believes an essential component of Britain's modernization was an improved relationship with the EU, culminating in British entry into the euro. Yet his uncompromising support for the US over Iraq has left Britain as deeply alienated from France and Germany as it had ever been in Thatcher's time. Britain may still some day join the euro, but it will not be Tony Blair who takes us in. Blair's strategy was to attain hegemony for New Labour by appropriating the Thatcherite inheritance. In domestic terms, this strategy has been a success, but it relies on continuing Conservative weakness and an economic and international environment congenial to neo‐liberal policies. At present both of these conditions appear to be changing to Blair's disadvantage. The Conservative Party seems to be shaping a post‐Thatcherite agenda. At the same time, the US is leading a movement away from neo‐liberal orthodoxies towards protectionism and deficit financing and faces an intractable guerrilla war in Iraq. In these circumstances, the neo‐Thatcherite strategy that sustained Blair in power could prove to be his undoing.     

‘Tony's war’? Blair,Kosovo and the interventionist impulse in British foreign policy

Operation Allied Force had a decisive impact on Tony Blair's leadership of UK foreign policy. This article begins with Blair's famous Chicago speech of April 1999; his clearest statement of an apparently underlying moral purpose in international relations. It then contrasts the conventional wisdom that over Kosovo Blair was acting out of a sense of moral obligation (sharpened by recent British failings to act to prevent humanitarian disasters in the Balkans) with a revisionist account centring on the domestic political considerations impelling Blair into this particular foreign policy adventure. Blair drew three lessons from his involvement in Operation Allied Force: that media presentation was a crucial aspect of implementing a successful foreign policy strategy; that he had been too cautious between 1997 and 1999, partly as a result of being chained to the vagaries of public opinion; and that he could generate robust and worthy foreign and defence policies sitting with his close advisers on the sofa of his 'den' in Downing Street rather than working through traditional channels. The key argument in conclusion is that there was a Tony Blair before Iraq, one who was genuinely set on building a consensus around humanitarian intervention.     

The death of the right‐to‐die campaigners (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The ‘right‐to‐die’ or assisted suicide debate in the UK has recently been dominated by high‐profile litigation which has brought to public attention stories of individual suffering. The most recent case is that of Tony Nicklinson who, as a result of his permanent and total paralysis which he said made his life ‘intolerable’, wanted the courts to allow a doctor to end his life. Only six days after a Judicial Review refused his request, Tony died of ‘natural’ causes. This article compares the presentation by the media of Tony's requested death with his actual death and discusses what this reveals more generally about the way in which the right‐to‐die debate is presented to the public. It argues that in a politicised debate in which the personal stories of the disabled‐dying are given airtime because of their didactic or symbolic potential, actual death becomes less important than the rights‐rhetoric surrounding death.     

Eric Bogle’s No Man’s Land and the grave of Willie McBride at the Somme

ABSTRACT

Eric Bogle wrote No Man’s Land in 1975. When it was released as The Green Fields of France by Davey Arthur and the Fureys in 1979 the song topped the Irish charts, while as far away as Australia it was declared one ‘of the most striking musical essays yet written on the futility of war.’ Yet No Man’s Land has been associated with controversy too: branded a rebel song in Ulster during The Troubles, singled out by Tony Blair as a ‘peace anthem’ and prelude to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and controversially chosen by the Royal British Legion for the Poppy Day appeal in 2014. In addition to exploring the ‘complex relations between cultural and political history’ in Ireland, this article also looks at the making of the documentary film ‘Eric Bogle: Return to No Man’s Land’ (by Dan Frodsham) in which Bogle returned to the grave of Willie McBride on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme to recite his poem to the now famous Inniskilling. To Bogle’s surprise the grave had become a pilgrimage site for this, an entirely fictional, Irish martyr created then immortalized in his own composition written four decades earlier.     

Reassessing the special relationship

The resignation of Tony Blair as British Prime Minister and the transition from Bush to Obama in the US mark the end of the second revival of the US–UK special relationship. The classic era of the special relationship began under the Labour government in the 1940s, though it was Winston Churchill who inspired the concept. It ended with the resignation of Harold Macmillan in 1963. Margaret Thatcher revived close personal relations with the US President as a guiding principle of UK foreign policy and Tony Blair successfully revived them again, even though the end of the Cold War had transformed the framework of transatlantic relations. Over the past 60 years US–UK relations have embedded specific security arrangements which have persisted, largely unquestioned, through the ups and downs of political relations at the top: close links between the two countries' armed forces; access to defence technology and procurement; intelligence ties through the UKUSA Agreement; a semi-independent nuclear deterrent and provision of military bases in the UK and its overseas territories. Public debate on the costs and benefits of these links has been limited; successive governments have discouraged a wider debate. The Obama administration enters office with few of the personal ties to Britain and to English culture, which have underpinned the special relationship. Earlier US administrations have approached relations with the UK from the perspective of US interests, while many British political leaders have felt—and have hoped to find in Washington—a sentimental attachment to Anglo–American partnership. British foreign policy would benefit from a reassessment of the structures of US–UK relations in terms of British interests, costs and benefits.     

Infinite conditions on the road to peace: the second New Labour government’s foreign policy approach to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict after 9/11

This article examines how a resurgent clash of Arab and Israeli nationalisms created tensions within New Labour as the leadership sought to reconcile claims of duplicity in its Middle East policy after 9/11 while retaining party unity and an international consensus for a war in Afghanistan. It argues that as European and international pressure to prioritise Middle East peace before pursuing a war with Iraq increased, Tony Blair’s emphasis on economic progress as a prerequisite to creating a state of Palestine was expanded to determine that Palestinian national rights also be considered on the evidence of fundamental reform and modernisation across the spectrum of political, civil and cultural life. These objectives, however, were not to be achieved following the deployment of a UN peace-keeping force, but the prevailing conditions of the Israeli occupation, provisos later inscribed in the US-led goal-driven, performance-based Road Map for Peace. This focus ran in parallel with his assumed role as a transatlantic ‘bridge’, and collectively helped to transform the multilateralist template of the Quartet into a classic trilateralist negotiating model—bilateral Arab-Israel talks, unilaterally overseen by the US—enacting the further exclusion of key European partners.     

Sententiousness and Nationalist Discourse: The Case of Alfredo Rocco

Abstract. This article considers the normative and hypostatising functions of nationalist discourse, and the necessity of rhetoric to nations and nationalism. It does so on the basis of a case study of sententiousness in the thought of Alfredo Rocco. Rocco was one of the most important Nationalist and Fascist intellectuals and the legislative architect of the Fascist state. His political thought is analysed by taking as a starting point a quirk of the historiography on Rocco, which insistently attributes a dangerous ‘rigour’ to his texts, and in particular to the punchy, sententious quality of his style. A close reading of Rocco's nationalism, using Flaubert to understand the rhetoric of sententiousness, reveals a systematic pattern of contradictions between normative and hypostatised definitions of the nation. Aspects of these findings, it is argued, can potentially be extended to embrace all forms of nationalism.     

‘It's Only Leftist Women Who Talk that Damn Nonsense About Women Being at a Disadvantage’: Eugenia Charles's Gender Politics in Dominica

Born in 1919 in Dominica and educated in Grenada, Canada and Britain, Eugenia Charles became the islands first female barrister, head of a political party and in 1980, Prime Minister. With political views on the right of the spectrum, her close alliances and friendships with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as well as her own defiant personality, Charles gained the title of ‘Iron Lady of the Caribbean’. This moniker, however, obscures more than it reveals, especially when it relates to Charles's gender politics. This article examines her speeches, interviews and policies and argues that a politics of contradiction and ambivalence characterised Charles's gender politics. This ambivalence partly explains the resilience of andocentric masculinist ideologies present in Caribbean political structures. Moreover, it demonstrates the continuity of ‘first-wave’ Caribbean feminism in the late twentieth century and the pragmatism of women in politics.     

Visual Persuasion in George W. Bush's Presidency: Cowboy Imagery in Public Discourse

Discussion of George W. Bush's rhetoric typically focuses on his spoken address, yet his use of cowboy visuals also qualifies as public communication. By visually identifying himself as a cowboy Bush associated his presidency with the story of the mythic cowboy, a powerful concept in American culture. While visual images are typically not considered a substantive and rational form of political communication, Bush's cowboy persona, emphasized visually, prompted widespread debate about his leadership style and approach to national problems, particularly terrorism. While many did not agree with his policies, the simplicity of the visual message and the foundational nature of the cowboy story provided a narrative that prompted a national debate on substantive issues of the day. Language is still considered the critical element of political debate, but as Bush's experience demonstrates, rhetoric includes visual communication as well.     

Triangular Contests and Caucus Rhetoric at the 1885 General Election*

This article explores the role played by late‐Victorian political associations during parliamentary election campaigns. The central hypothesis is that party organisation, known popularly as the ‘caucus’, is best understood as a rhetorical device used by politicians and the press to gain legitimacy in the new context created by an expanded and quasi‐democratic electorate. The hypothesis is tested by examining the 1885 general election campaigns in Nottingham West and Sheffield Central. Both constituencies witnessed a triangular contest whereby an ‘additional’ candidate, standing on a radical platform, entered the campaign and pursued a distinctly ‘anti‐caucus’ agenda that was aimed primarily at the local Liberal Party Association. The manner in which the ‘caucus’ issue was articulated by all sides involved throws new light on the role played by party organisation during this period. While all sides described their association in a way that both defended and asserted its legitimacy, they equally used ‘anti‐caucus’ rhetoric to diminish the credibility of their opponent's organisation, even though they were emulating the deeds they were denouncing. Indeed, it was those within official Liberalism that indulged in the most virulent ‘anti‐caucus’ rhetoric. Thus, it is suggested that, with regard to the attitude of radicals towards official Liberalism, this ‘anti‐caucus’ rhetoric reflected not a real popular resistance against party organisation or ‘party’, but simply intense competition and imitation between rival ‘caucuses’.     

Richard Oastler,Toryism, Radicalism and the Limitations of Party,c.1807–46

Richard Oastler (1789–1861), the immensely popular and fiery orator who campaigned for factory reform and for the abolition of the new poor law in the 1830s and 1840s, has been relatively neglected by political historians. Few historians, however, have questioned his toryism. As this article suggests, labelling Oastler an ‘ultra‐tory’ or a ‘church and state tory’ obscures more than it reveals. There were also radical strands in Oastler's ideology. There has been a tendency among Oastler's biographers to treat him as unique. By comparing Oastler with other tories – Sadler, Southey, and the young Disraeli – as well as radicals like Cobbett, this article locates him much more securely among his contemporaries. His range of interests were much broader (and more radical) than the historiographical concentration on factory and poor law reform suggests. While there were periods when Oastler's toryism (or radicalism) was more apparent, one of the most consistent aspects of his political career was a distaste for party politics. Far from being unique or a maverick, Oastler personified the pervasive anti‐party sentiments held by the working classes, which for all the historiographical attention paid to popular radicalism and other non‐party movements still tends to get lost in narratives of the ‘rise of party’.     

Masculinity and Secessionism in Italy: An Assessment

Abstract. The masculinist rhetoric of the northern Italian separatist party, the Lega Nord, is an example of nationalist status affirmation. The stereotyped contrast between effeminate southerners and masculine northerners developed at the end of last century is used to affirm the superiority of the masculine North. The Lega's rhetoric parallels mainstream concerns on Italy's international status, and proposals for reforms to make Italy more ‘masculine’ and European. The use of a gendered language for the affirmation of national status reveals a belief in a normative hierarchy of nations, but also introduces a tension between a ‘masculinist’ status affirmation and a model of modernity which includes the emancipation of women as one of its principles.     

Management and Community: Some Problems with New Labour

Abstract

This essay examines some tendencies in New Labour's political rhetoric, in particular its reduction of what counts as political and what counts as community. What will be argued is firstly, that the quest for managerial efficiency has functioned to reshape political discourse. This has come about primarily through the attempted removal of political control from economic and public life through the rhetoric of audit and the proliferation of executive agencies and other quangos. Secondly, I will also claim that the language of something called ‘the value of community’, despite being the primary moral principle underpinning the whole New Labour agenda, is politically virtually redundant, principally because its sphere has been reduced to the ‘voluntary’ sector. This redrawing of the boundaries of politics does not augur well for the long-term survival of the British political system: serious questions about the role of the state and the future of democracy emerge from the policies of the past five years and will be discussed briefly in the final section.     

The last laugh: Western Australia's elections and the executive state, 1983–89

Aside from bribery and corruption associated with the police and organized ‘vice and crime’, Mr Tony Fitzgerald Q.C. highlighted in his ‘Report’ five criteria as areas of concern over the health and future of parliamentary democracy in Queensland. They were: 1. Decline of Parliament in terms of (a) sitting hours, and (b) consistent refusal by the Premier and Ministers to answer parliamentary questions and to be fully accountable and responsible to Parliament for public expenditures, ministerial expenses and extra‐parliamentary executive decisions; 2. Business deals, joint ventures and other financial transactions between government, its agencies and government favourites; 3. Lavish funding of the governing political party by recipients of its favours; 4. Political ‘stacking’ of the public service; 5. Use of taxpayers’ funds by Premier and Ministers to finance writs against critics.     

Myths and the political use of religion in Christian Democratic culture

Abstract

In this essay, the author will attempt to analyze the overall relationship established between the party of Christian Democracy (so named for its affiliation with a traditional religion) and the phenomena of the sacralization of politics that have so profoundly shaped the character of mass parties in the twentieth century. The quest for consensus led the Catholic party to adopt a new language, based on mythical thinking and profoundly indebted – in content and mode of communication – to the experiences of totalitarianism. The active rivalry with political religions marked, both in the phase of development and in the process of communication, the forms of mass political expression of Christian Democracy. De Gasperi's proposal concerning the definition of new identities and political affiliations, both on the national level and on the broader Western level (both in European and Atlantic terms) was the product of a unique ideological development in keeping with the requirements of modern mass politics.     

Sport and society in Italy today

Summary

In ‘Itinerary’ Patrick McCarthy provides an introduction to the four articles that examine the connections between sport, politics, business and contemporary culture in Italy. Noting that mass participation in sport has been closely related to modernization, McCarthy argues that the forms of contemporary mass sport reflect the particular cultural, political and economic conditions of each European society. In Italy these made soccer and cycling the most popular mass sports by 1945.

Patrizia Dogliani’s article ‘Sport and Fascism’ examines the development of mass sport in Italy from the late nineteenth century, showing the critical role played by the Fascist regime, which rapidly expanded public sports facilities while the language of politics and combat permeated the vocabulary of sport in Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. Initially the emphasis was on international competition as a symbol of national virility, but following the success of Germany and the USA in the 1936 Olympics the regime’s search for consensus placed new emphasis on recreational aspects. The institutional and administrative organization of sport established in the 1930s remained in place in Italy, however, until more recendy.

In ‘Itinerary 2’ McCarthy examines the roles of the boxer Carnera from Friuli and the racing driver Tazio Nuvolari as sporting heroes of Mussolini’s Italy and in ‘Itinerary 3’ shows how the struggles between Catholic Italy and Communist Italy were personified in the rivalry between the cyclists Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi in the post-war period.

In ‘Itinerary 4’ he asks why soccer had by the 1970s overtaken cycling as Italy’s most popular sport. That theme is examined in greater detail by Nicola Porro and Pippa Russo, whose article reconstructs the ‘hybridization of sport, mass media and politics’ in Italy in the 1990s. Its central focus is Silvio Berlusconi, the self-made media tycoon who founded Fininvest in the 1970s, acquired AC Milan in 1986, and by 1994 controlled a media empire that enabled him to found a new political party (Forza Italia) and become Italy’s Prime Minister albeit for less than a year. Porro and Russo examine the ways in which Berlusconi’s roles in the world of the media and professional soccer have changed both Italian politics and Italian sport.

In ‘Itinerary 5’ McCarthy sets the example of Berlusconi in the context of the integration of soccer and mass media, the commercialization and politicization of sport at a global level in the last decade. These issues are developed in greater detail in Emanuela Poli’s article, ‘The revolution in the televised soccer market’, which emphasizes the critical role that has been played by soccer and soccer clubs in the development of the new media empires based on digital pay-per-view TV and the sale of sporting events in the 1990s. This has left control of the sport (in terms of who can watch and when) in the hands of major international communications moguls like Berlusconi and Rupert Murdoch.

‘Itinerary 6’ links the fragmentation of collective myths like the national soccer championships to the decline of the nation state, and surveys the situation of other sports in Italy (the Americas Cup, skiing, rugby football. Formula 1 motor racing and the gymnasium). The latter is the subject of the final article by Roberta Sassatelli on ‘The commercialization of discipline: keep-fit culture and its values’ which explores the social and cultural meanings attached to the growing vogue for fitness clubs and the shaping of the ideal body in contemporary Italy.     

Honor and crisis: the chivalric assumptions of Italian intervention in 1915?

The author postulates the use of chivalric language and tropes as part of the interventionist rhetoric that helped bring Italy into the First World War. Despite obvious affinities between the culture of dueling and the ‘virile assumptions’ of the interventionists, including their own participation in many duels, a review of the three major interventionist newspapers reveals the presence of surprisingly little chivalric language (sfida, vertenza, duello) during the crisis. This absence is explained primarily as a result of the rapid and effective dehumanization of the central powers, which disqualified them as gentlemen worthy of chivalric challenge. In addition, the use of the term ‘honor’ was found to be complicated by continuing confusion over Italy’s possible ‘betrayal’ of the Triple Alliance, which only faded after the treaty was finally rescinded in May 1915.     

The double interregnum: UK–US relations beyond Blair and Bush

The downturn in relations between the UK and the US under the premiership of Gordon Brown presents an interesting opportunity to analyse the nature of the relationship between the two states. Brown's policy of creating distance between his approach and that of his predecessor, Tony Blair, and between himself and President Bush, offers a case‐study in whether it is possible to be cool towards an incumbent leader while remaining close to the state he leads. In other words: is it feasible to be anti‐Bush and pro‐American? It also provides an opportunity to analyse the role of political timing in inter‐state relations. By appearing driven by reaction to the events of 2003 despite taking office in 2007, Brown put himself out of step with the prevailing mood of the time. By also acting as if the Bush administration was a lame duck counting out its time to retirement in 2009, Brown allowed himself to be outmanoeuvred in his bid for America's attention by the conciliatorily pro‐American new leaders of France and Germany. By acting as if the Bush administration is a political interregnum, the Brown government has invited the United States to treat his own administration the same way. The result is a dual interregnum in UK–US relations, with each incumbent leader awaiting the political demise of the other before better relations can be resumed.     

Soviet official critiques of the resource scarcity prediction by limits to growth report: the case of Evgenii Fedorov’s ecological crisis rhetoric

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on official Soviet attitudes towards ‘ecological crisis’ and the rhetoric developed to address it. It analyses in particular the discussions in the Soviet Union that followed the publication of the Club of Rome report Limits to Growth (1972). It contributes to the better understanding of the debate around resource scarcity in a framework of so-called ‘ecological crisis’ as it was conceptualized in the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. It is based on the analysis of writings by the Soviet geophysicist Evgenii Fedorov (1910–81) who was among the few Soviet members of the Club of Rome and thus had direct access to contemporary Western scholarship. The paper explores how such rhetoric accepted and reconceptualized the notion of crisis for use in both domestic and international environmental politics and the associated advancement of technology as the most effective remedy against resource scarcity. Fedorov largely built his ideas on Soviet Marxism and Vladimir Vernadsky’s concepts, which preceded the current notion of the Anthropocene. In addition, his experience in nuclear projects and weather modification research –– both more or less successful technocratic projects – gave him some kind of assurance of the power of technology. The paper also provides some comparison of the views of the problem from the other side of the Iron Curtain through a discussion of the thoughts of the left-wing American environmentalist Barry Commoner (1917–2012), which had been popularized for the Soviet public by Fedorov.     

The Archbishop in the Beleaguered City: An Analysis of the Conflicting Roles and Political Oratory of Makarios

Abstract

In this paper I want to examine the significance of Makarios' combined roles of Archbishop and President of Cyprus for his style of leadership and his political oratory. In so doing I hope to shed some light on certain aspects of ‘The Cyprus Problem’ which has hitherto received scant attention by political scientists and sociologists.