Ideology, party identity and renewal

Journal of Political Ideologies

Volumn 14, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 11-30

  Buckler, Steve ^a   Dolowitz, David P ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK; PARTY POLITICS; POLITICAL IDEOLOGY;

EID: 60749133096     PISSN: 13569317     EISSN: 14699613     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13569310802649102     Document Type: Article

References (134)

1. In talking about political parties, we refer, broadly, to the model of a mass membership organization seeking power in a democratic system. Within this, of course, there are different types of parties, distinguished by their internal organization and mode of operation - see, inter alia, R. Gunter and L. Diamond, 'Species of Political Parties: A New Typology', Party Politics, 9 (2003), pp. 167-199
2. L. Diamond and R. Gunther (Eds) Political Parties and Democracy (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)
3. A. Panebianco, Political Parties: Organisation and Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
4. M. Duverger, Political Parties (London: Methuen, 1954). However, while important in the study of political parties, these particular distinctions do not compromise the broader ideological question that is addressed here.
5. Some would argue that ideology is much less important that it once was in terms of party standpoints and competition. It has been suggested that changes in means of communication have had the effect of privileging the personalities of party leaders over the presentation of ideological positions and programmes (Gunter and Diamond, ibid., p. 168). Arguably, however, personalities have always been important in democratic politics and even if the emergence of new forms of communication have enhanced that importance, party leaders still have to have something to say, and what they do have to say will necessarily have an ideological direction that will be open to judgment both by the public and by their own party membership.
6. Another example can be seen in the Conservative Party in the late 1970s.
7. M. Bevir, 'New Labour: A Study in Ideology'. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2 (2000), p. 281.
8. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1963).
9. Panebianco, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 53.
10. See S. Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left (London: Verso, 1988), p. 85
11. I. Budge, 'A New Spatial theory of Party Competition: Uncertainty, Ideology and Policy Equilibria Viewed Comparatively and Temporally', British Journal of Political Science, 24 (1994), p. 446.
12. There may be other kinds of limits to ideological malleability derived from general cultural assumptions; those, for example which may constrain what Michael Freeden terms the 'adjacency' of conceptual elements in an ideological standpoint. See M. Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 70-71. That this general limiting backdrop exists will be taken as read here.
13. See T. Jones, Remaking the Labour Party: From Gaitskell to Blair (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 147
14. C. Pierson, 'Lost Property: What the third Way Lacks', Journal of Political Ideologies, 10 (2005), p. 145.
15. M. Seliger, Ideology and Politics (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976), p. 255. Indeed, a firm ideological standpoint may generally provide a more conducive context for flexibility with respect to policy than does a narrower policy-focussed agenda
16. see B. Brock et al., Making Sense of Political Ideology: The Power of Language in Democracy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), p. 10.
17. Budge, op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 451.
18. Cf. P. Diamond, Equality Now: The Future of Revisionism (London: Fabian Society, 2005), p. 1.
19. Seliger, op. cit., Ref. 10, pp. 252, 260
20. Jones, op. cit., Ref. 9, p. 133. It is arguable that renewal processes may involve not just retaining the confidence of the membership but of managing expectations and changing perceptions. As a result, the process may also have an effect on the demographics of the party's core support. But these things need to be managed though a negotiation with the views of the membership: A party cannot simply dismiss its membership and appoint a new one. It has been argued, of course, that parties are no longer as reliant on a mass membership as they once were. Katz and Mair talk about the emergence of the 'cartel party', less answerable to the views of its membership and more on the opinions of outside experts, think tanks and focus groups
21. see R. Katz and P. Mair, 'Changing Models of Party Organisation and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party', Party Politics 1 (1995), pp. 5-28. However, this tendency should not be overstated. The mass membership party arguably remains important as a means of aggregating political interests and avoiding problems of indeterminacy with respect to social choice
22. see P. Whiteley and P. Seyd, 'The Dynamics of Party Activism in Britain: A Spiral of Demobilisation' British Journal of Political Science, 28 (1998), pp. 113-137. Members also, of course, contribute significantly to party finances.
23. Panebianco, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 58.
24. Cf. W. Leggett, 'Social Change, Values and Political Agency: The Case of The Third Way', Politics, 24 (2004), pp. 12-19.
25. This is shown in the fact that 'those debating the nature of change within the contemporary party have ... employed a cautious 'new Labour', an assertive 'New Labour', a wholly qualified '"New Labour"', or ... a sceptical '"New" Labour' - S. Fielding, The Labour Party (London: Palgrave, 2003), p. 3.
26. A. Vincent, 'New Ideologies for Old?', Political Quarterly, 69 (1998), p. 55.
27. Fielding, op. cit., Ref. 16, p. 3.
28. T. Blair, Socialism (London: Fabian Society, 1994), pp. 4-5.
29. G. Brown, 'A Modern Agenda for Prosperity and Social Reform', Speech to the Social Market Foundation, London, 3rd February 2003.
30. T. Blair, Tony Blair: In His Own Words, P. Richards (Ed.) (London: Politico's, 2004), p. 61.
31. T. Blair, 'A Battle We must Win', Fabian Review, 105 (1993), p. 3.
32. T. Blair, The Third Way (London: Fabian Society), p. 3.
33. See also the Labour Party, General Election Manifesto (London: The Labour Party, 1997).
34. See S. Buckler and D. Dolowitz, 'Can Fair Be Efficient? New Labour, Social Liberalism and UK Economic Policy', New Political Economy, 9 (2003), pp. 23-38.
35. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 19, p. 4
36. D. Miliband, 'The Politics of Economics', Fabian Review, 104 (1992), pp. 7-9.
37. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 22, p. 3.
38. G. Brown, 'The Servant State: Towards a New Constitutional Settlement', Political Quarterly, 63 (1992), pp. 394-403.
39. Hall, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 227-230.
40. We are not suggesting that figures such as Blair and Brown sat down and read the work of the New Liberals and Ethical Socialists and then attempted to adapt them and put them into practice. For the most part, the influence of ideas at this level upon politicians is likely to be indirect, channelled through networks of advisors, think tanks, party intellectuals and so-forth.
41. T. Blair, New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country (London: Fourth Estate, 1996), p. 239.
42. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 21, p. 83.
43. Undoubtedly, New Labour have been selective in what they have taken and claimed as their provenance. It is certainly arguable that key differences can be identified between New Labour's standpoint and those of Hobhouse, Hobson or Tawney - see Buckler and Dolowitz, op. cit. Ref. 24, pp. 315-317
44. B. Clift and J. Tomlinson, 'Tawney and the Third Way', Journal of Political Ideologies, 7 (2002), pp. 315-331
45. M. Freeden, 'True Blood or False Genealogy? New Labour and British Social Democratic Thought', in A. Gamble and A. Wright (Eds) The New Social Democracy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999). The point here, however, is not to attempt a direct identification between New Labour and those earlier traditions but to show how they adopted selective thematic resonances from those traditions in the context of the imperatives pertaining to renewal.
46. Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 8, p. 457.
47. It is certainly the case that both of these standpoints display a debt to the 19th-century idealist liberal philosopher T.H. Green. See T. H. Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation and other Writings, P. Harris and J. Morrow (Eds) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
48. Marxism and Fabian socialism are of course radically different but elements of each were rolled into a constructed sense of a past ideological tendency characterized in terms of Blair's contrast between moral and mechanical reform mentioned above.
49. Clift and Tomlinson, op. cit., Ref. 32, p. 323.
50. Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 8, p. 200.
51. R.H. Tawney, History and Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), pp. 254-256
52. Clift and Tomlinson, op. cit., Ref. 32, p. 328.
53. T. Blair, Let Us Face The Future (London: Fabian Society, 1995), p. 11.
54. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 15.
55. Blair, ibid., p. 15.
56. Jones, op. cit., Ref. 9, p. 147.
57. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 39, p. 3. This periodization might in part explain the fact that another ideological strand that arguably has echoes in New Labour's position - that of the 'revisionism' of the 1960s most closely associated with the ideas of Tony Crosland - does not generally figure in their rhetoric. It is as if 'the party's hierarchy perceived that proximity to revisionist social democracy damaged its cause'
58. Diamond, op. cit., Ref. 12, p. 10). In part there may be ideological reasons for this - Crosland's position arguably retained a technocratic spirit, and a commitment to increasing relative equality of outcome, with which New Labour did not wish to be associated. More than this, however, claiming an influence here would prove awkward with respect to their preferred periodization, where the 'authentic' reformist spirit was to be found further back, prior to the period of ascendancy enjoyed by Fabianism.
59. See for example A. Giddens, The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1998), p. 79
60. S. Crine, 'Basildon, Brixton and Opportunity', Fabian Review, 104 (1992), p. 8
61. Commission on Social Justice, Social Justice: Strategies for National Renewal (London: Vintage, 1994), p. 326.
62. T. Blair, 'New Politics for a New Century', The Independent (21st September 1998).
63. T. Blair, Speech to the Singapore Business Community (8th January 1996).
64. R. Plant, 'Ideology', in A. Seldon (Ed.) The Blair Effect (London: Little Brown, 2001), p. 564.
65. A key reference for Blair personally here was to the theologian MacMurray, whose work 'seemed to make sense of the need to involve the individual in society without the individual being subsumed in society' - Tony Blair, cited in P. Stephens, Tony Blair: The Price of Leadership (London: Politico's, 2004), p. 31
66. cf. P. Mandelson, The Blair Revolution Revisited (London: Politico's, 2002), pp. 32-33. The significance of MacMurray to Blair is arguably to be seen in the light of the latter's own Christian convictions, something which also might explain why MacMurray did not feature widely in the broader rhetoric of New Labour. Blair's press secretary, Alistair Campbell famously responded to a journalist's inquiry as to the Prime Minister's religious beliefs with the words 'we don't do God'.
67. L.T. Hobhouse, The Labour Movement (London: Fisher Unwin, 1912), p. 13.
68. Hobhouse, ibid., p. 28.
69. Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 32, p. 157.
70. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 30, p. 239
71. G. Brown, Fair Is Efficient (London: Fabian Society, 1994).
72. Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 32, pp. 151, 162.
73. Brown, op. cit., Ref. 27, p. 396.
74. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 22, p. 3.
75. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 30, p. 239.
76. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 4.
77. Cf. D. Pels, 'Socialism Between Fact and Value: From Tony Blair to Hendrik de Man and Back', Journal of Political Ideologies, 10 (2005), pp. 145-163.
78. T. Blair, Speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research, London, 14th January 1999.
79. T. Blair, Speech at Napier University, 3rd December 2004. This was a theme that, in the 1990s, enjoyed something of a resurgence and New Labour were able to link their thinking in with popular exponents of a new communitarianism, notably Amitai Etzioni, as well as to influential academics such as Michael Walzer and Michael Sandel
80. see Brown, op. cit., Ref. 20, p. 4.
81. Brown, op. cit., Ref. 27, p. 398.
82. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 14.
83. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 30, p. 110.
84. S. White, 'Rights and Responsibilities: A Social Democratic Perspective', in A. Gamble and A. Wright (Eds) The New Social Democracy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 166-179.
85. T. Blair, Speech: Progress and Justice in the Twenty-First Century, London, 13th June 2003
86. G. Brown, Speech: Civic Society in Modern Britain, London, 20th July 2000.
87. T. Blair, Speech to the Labour Party Conference, Brighton, 2nd October 2001.
88. L.T. Hobhouse, The Elements of Social Justice (London: Allen and Unwin, 1922), p. 37.
89. Hobhouse, ibid., p. 41.
90. Hobhouse, ibid., pp. 63-69.
91. Pierson, op. cit., Ref. 9, p. 153.
92. T. Blair, 'Our Citizens Should Not Live in Fear', The Observer (11th December 2005).
93. Hobhouse, op. cit., Ref. 67, p. 37.
94. T. Blair, Speech: Bringing Britain Together, London, 8th December 1997.
95. Hobhouse, op. cit., Ref. 49, p. 16
96. J. Hobson, Problems of Poverty (London: Methuen, 1891), pp. 1-15.
97. R.H. Tawney, Equality (New York: Capricorn, 1961), p. 161.
98. Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 32, p. 162.
99. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 22, p. 3.
100. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 71.
101. Brown, op. cit., Ref. 65, p. 3.
102. G. Brown, The Mais Lecture, London, 19th October 1999.
103. D. Blunkett, 'Opportunity for All', DfEE (2000).
104. G. Brown, Speech to the Labour Party Conference, Brighton, 1997.
105. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 21, p. 191.
106. M. Thatcher, Interview in Woman's Own Magazine, 23rd September 1987.
107. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 30, p. 247.
108. Blair, ibid., p. 200.
109. G. Brown, 'Why Labour is Still Loyal to the Poor', The Guardian (2nd August 1997).
110. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 66.
111. Tawney, op. cit., Ref. 75, p. 106
112. see also, Hobhouse, op. cit., Ref. 49, p. 37.
113. Brown, op. cit., Ref. 53, p. 3.
114. G. Brown, 'Equality - Then and Now', in D. Leonard (Ed.) Crosland and New Labour (London: Macmillan/Fabian Society, 1999), pp. 41-42.
115. Tawney, op. cit., Ref. 75, p. 112.
116. G. Brown, 'Tough Decisions', Fabian Review, 106 (1996), p. 3.
117. Miliband, op. cit., Ref. 25, p. 8.
118. Brown, op. cit., Ref. 93, p. 1.
119. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 21, p. 87.
120. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 3.
121. See also P. Gould, 'The Land that Labour Forgot', in A. Chadwick and R. Heffernan (Eds) The New Labour Reader (Cambridge: Polity, 2003), pp. 39-42.
122. Crine, op. cit., Ref. 44, p. 8.
123. Plant, op. cit., Ref. 47, p. 12.
124. Brown, op. cit., Ref. 53, p. 1.
125. Brown, op. cit., Ref. 93, p. 1
126. see also T. Blair, Speech: 'Britain - The Best Place for Inward Investment', London, 22nd June 2000.
127. A. Johnson, Speech to the Ethnic Employment Taskforce (London, 23rd November 2004).
128. Brown, op. cit., Ref. 87.
129. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 3.
130. Blair, op. cit., Ref. 30, pp. 299-300.
131. Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 32, p. 161.
132. S. Jenkins, 'He Looks Like a Man Who Will Be PM - But Not in One Month', The Guardian (4th October 2007).
133. A. Rawnsley, 'Wherever You Look, They're Suffering from Blurred Vision', The Observer (11th October 2007).
134. Any renewal process based on 'old/new' periodizations risks offending against some iconic figures, events or standpoints. In the case of New Labour, the discourse of renewal, based on a distinction between ethical and technocratic approaches arguably contained or implied an incidental indictment of the approach taken by the 1945 Labour government, widely held to be responsible for the introduction of the National Health Service and certainly somewhat iconic in the culture of the party. However, time matters in these kinds of cases. The Attlee government was sufficiently temporally distant to be forced into the margins of ideological debate and the architects of New Labour made few references to it. The much more recent phenomena of Thatcher and Thatcherism are less susceptible to burial in history.