100 Years On: Who are the Inheritors of the ‘New Liberal’ Mantle?

The 'great divorce' of progressive politics at the end of the nineteenth century permanently altered British politics. While the philosophies of the Labour movement and the Liberal Party had many common elements, ideologically they diverged on issues of the role of liberty and the state in relation to the individual and the community to the point that they became irreconcilable. New Liberalism was one result of that debate. Contemporary political debate reflects many of the same features as the turmoil present a century ago, and the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats are again contesting much of the same ground. This article seeks to draw out the salient aspects of this debate to conclude which, if either, party is the inheritor of the New Liberal tradition.     

New Labour

Abstract

This paper examines the use made by political parties of branding, as a means of establishing party values and winning political support. It looks in particular at the way in which political parties use communication to create, build and maintain political brands.

The paper involves an examination of the recent history of the British Labour Party. After a long period in the political wilderness, the party re-branded itself as “New Labour” in the mid-1990s, and-as New Labour-swept to power in a landslide election victory in 1997, under their new leader, Tony Blair.

Using media coverage and material written by some of the architects of New Labour, the paper will describe the creation of the “New Labour” brand, and look at how it was developed and used to generate political support. The paper will also consider the evolution and development of the brand, as the substance underlying the stated brand values has come to be questioned, not least by so-called “Old Labour” supporters of the party.

The paper will draw conclusions regarding the successful management of a political brand, pointing in particular at the need to ensure that the performance of a party espousing a particular brand supports and reinforces communicated brand values and the brand itself.     

Corbynism: Social Democracy in a New Left Garb

This article traces some of the rhetoric flowing from Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party to the New Left, a political and intellectual movement in the UK which rose up to challenge the Stalinisation of socialism. These New Left lineages appear most clearly in the value denoted by both movements toward extra‐parliamentary politics. Indeed, the work of the New Left intellectual Ralph Miliband considers this factor to be a criterion by which we can assess the extent to which Corbyn’s party has surpassed the traditional ‘Labourist’ mould. By going beyond the movement’s early rhetoric, I show that it hasn’t. Instead, I present evidence that Corbyn’s Labour is a deeply social democratic one. The article offers an explanation for this assessment based on comparison of the contexts from which both the New Left and Corbynism emerged, and outlines an analytical path for future scholarship that emphasises continuity as well as change, and wards against ideological bias.     

The normalizing role of rationalist assumptions in the institutional embedding of neoliberalism

The political economy of Britain over the past three decades provides an interesting example of the consolidation, normalization and institutionalization of a new economic paradigm – neoliberalism. As such, it serves as a potentially instructive focus for debate both about the conditions under which economic paradigms are replaced and consolidated and the evolution of such paradigms through the process of institutionalization. In this paper I suggest that the institutionalization of this new economic paradigm has been associated with the shift from a normative to a normalized and necessitarian neoliberalism. I examine the role played by rationalist assumptions in this extended process of normalization-institutionalization. After presenting a stylized account of the evolution of British neoliberalism, I show how New Labour's monetary policy regime is the heir to the legacy of monetarism and its agenda of labour-market reform is the heir to Thatcherism's supply-side economics. I suggest that the time-inconsistency thesis and the business school globalization thesis have played an equivalent role, for New Labour, to that played for the new right by monetarism and supply-side economics in legitimating neoliberalism. In this way neoliberalism has been normalized. In the final sections of the paper I reflect on the implications of the normalized and necessitarian character of neoliberalism in Britain for its contestability and for democratic economic governance more broadly.     

Through thick and thin? The dynamics of government support across income groups during economic crises

Students of economic voting have recently made substantial progress in their understanding of when the economy is and is not likely to impact election outcomes. Our knowledge of the lower level dynamics that drive these aggregate results remains fairly murky. In this paper we test competing theoretical claims about how individual level orientations toward political economy lead to observed aggregate trends in support for incumbent politicians. We do this with models of support for the Labour Party in the United Kingdom before and during the recent global economic turndown.     

No New Vision: the Gradual Death of British Social Democracy?

This article argues that the Labour Party has no new vision for British social democracy. New Labour in Government is intellectually tired and lacks ideological vision. Gordon Brown's leadership is managerial and lacking robust ideological content. These problems exist in a period of severe recession and whereby the Conservatives under David Cameron are in the ascendancy. The argument in this article asserts that revisionism is required in the Labour Party. An ideological revisionism which reconnects the Party with an overt vision of social democratic politics; which reconnects the Labour leadership with activists and supporters; and which inspires the next generation of Labour voters.     

Seeking ontological security through the rise of China: New Zealand as a small trading nation

Maintaining global peace as China rises is a key strategic goal of Western liberal democracies. Compared to other western liberal democracies, New Zealand's response to the ‘rise of China’ is notable for its absence of security and political frictions and for the achievement of a series of diplomatic ‘firsts’. Can this be explained only by material concern over the national economic interest as China's role in the global economy increases or do ideational factors also underlay how New Zealand engages China? This paper employs the ontological security framework to demonstrate how New Zealand identity as a ‘small trading nation’ and ‘good international citizen’ has shaped its turn to Asia and response to the ‘rise of China'. It first analyses the origins of New Zealand's outward facing identity and resultant foreign policy positions long before China became an important aspect of New Zealand trade policy. It then shows how New Zealand seeks ontological security as a ‘small trading nation’ and ‘good international citizen’ in its relations with China and how China has responded to this type of engagement. The paper illustrates the importance of ideational factors in Western liberal democracies’ responses to the ‘rise of China’.     

Islands of the Mind: New Labour's Defensive Engagement with the European Union

This article reviews the cumulative development of New Labour's attitude and strategy towards the EU since the late 1980s and argues that the first two New Labour governments' approach to the EU represented a distinct retreat from the 'constructive engagement' and social democratic philosophy of Tony Blair's early modernising phase, moving steadily to occupy a much more traditional British position of 'defensive engagement', mixing national preferences with Atlanticism, and resisting further political integration in favour of traditional 'intergovernmentalism'. It is further argued that New Labour's prioritisation and preferencing of a UK institutional and political economy based upon economic liberalisation, the preservation of key aspects of national sovereignty, and maintaining Atlanticism as the bedrock of Europe's external foreign and defence policies have left Britain almost as far from the true 'heart of Europe' as when Blair inherited office from John Major in 1997.     

The British Labour Party and monetary union

The real test of the British Labour Party's new orientation to Europe will be its policy on economic and monetary union (EMU). This article analyses Labours political economy in relation to European integration and to the management of the currency, and how the intersection of these two have produced four distinctive approaches to EMU within the party. It assesses the stance of new Labour towards EMU in the context of this internal Labour Party debate as well as in the wider context of European social democracy.     

The Erosion of Party Politics in Britain

This article looks at the erosion of democratic practice enacted by "New" Labour in Britain under the leadership of Tony Blair. Building on the internal reforms of the 1980s, the process of Labour Party "modernization" has created an exclusive, top-down managerial style of leadership. This type of party leadership and management has far-reaching implications for British politics more generally, not least the role of political parties. The current crisis of the Conservatives and the destruction of representative democracy within the Labour Party pose serious questions regarding the medium-term future of parties as voluntary membership organizations. These changes are placed in the context of a possible longer-term transformation of British political structures in order to exchange the long-established administration of the Conservative Party for a new type of governmental machinery. The aim is not a new "traditional" party of government, but a partyless formation built around a dominant central presidential figure and his office—a change which necessitates abolishing the Labour Party and social democracy as they currently exist. It is argued that this anticipated remedy to a protracted crisis of the British state accords closely to the requirements of neoliberal economic management, while drawing upon developments in the wider global environment. However, if this is to succeed, Blair's "modernizing" tendency needs to be able to articulate a coherent ideology that strikes a popular chord. Thus far, Blair's managerial approach to politics may have scored a few points against the old party ideologies, but it has also undermined attempts to promote an alternative ideology—even one of a "partyless" nature.     

Termination Theory and National Climate Change Mitigation Programs: The Case of New Zealand

In 2008 New Zealand (NZ) changed from a Labour‐led to a National‐led government, and this resulted in a shift to government's carbon emission mitigation strategy, including the abandonment of the Communities for Climate Protection (CCP) and the Carbon Neutral Public Service (CNPS) programs. Using deLeon's seminal model for program termination, the objective of this research is to determine why NZ's newly elected government discontinued these initiatives. This empirical research is investigative and probing, and comprises a series of semi‐structured interviews with senior managers responsible for the delivery of the respective program within their organization. The architects of each program are also investigated. In the end, this study finds that while economic constraints and programmatic inefficiencies may have played a contributing role, political ideology is the primary rationale for the termination of the CNPS and the CCP‐NZ programs.     

Industrial Relations and the Limits of the State: Can a Left Labour Government Resurrect Comprehensive Sectoral Collective Bargaining and Restore Trade Union Power?

Since 2017 the British Labour Party has proposed mandatory sectoral collective bargaining (SCB) as a comprehensive strategy to rebuild the trade union voice across the entire economy. The intellectual roots lie in the Institute of Employment Rights’ (IER) Manifesto for Labour Law (2016). First, this article explains the core IER approach, questioning its feasibility given current low levels of union membership and bargaining coverage and whether it would produce the stable and productive economy promised. Second, the article develops four social science objections to this state-driven approach centred on industrial relations history; political sociology; economics; and political philosophy. The conclusion argues that while stronger voluntary trade unions could help, it is neither practicable nor desirable for the state to impose a trade union, single-channel approach to employee voice. Instead, a ‘mixed economy of voice’ is proposed, perhaps including statutory works councils, which speaks directly to all employees—union and non-union—and wins broader political, employer and public support.     

It's the Culture, Stupid! New Labour's Progressive Consensus

For New Labour to achieve the 'progressive consensus' to which it aspires, it needs to develop a transformative, cultural politics. This would engage in a battle of hearts and minds with the electorate, seeking to shape its preferences rather than accommodating them. Much of the accumulated criticism of New Labour focuses on its failure to develop an overarching political narrative to fulfil this task. However, critics have also shown that New Labour does have a definite vision of the type of society and individual it is constructing in the face of social change. Unfortunately for progressives, this is based on an image of the acquisitive individual, culturally conservative community and a fatalistic understanding of modernisation. Entrenching a progressive consensus requires a political strategy that resonates with contemporary experiences of social change, while showing how it can be steered in more progressive directions.     

Remaking New Zealand's Economic Policy: Institutional Elites as Radical Innovators 1984–1993

During the mid-1980s and early 1990s the New Zealand economy moved from being one of the most regulated outside the former communist bloc to among the most liberal in the OECD. Largely unheralded and begun by an ostensibly social democratic Labour government, changes included the floating of the exchange rate; extensive liberalization of financial, capital and other markets; lowering of trade protection; fiscal restraint and monetary disinflation; changes to the machinery of government; corporatization and then sale of state assets; and changes to industrial relations frameworks (Castles, Gerritsen and Vowles 1996). Known as Rogernomics after Minister of Finance Roger Douglas, these economic policies were heavily derivative of neoclassical economic theories, such as the New Classical and Chicago schools, public choice and new institutional economics (Boston et al. 1996, ch. 2; Goldfinch 1997). This article explains how such radical economic restructuring occurred through the influence of a select group of strategically located institutional elites.     

Deliberative multiculturalism in New Labour's Britain

The aim of this paper is to examine the principles that New Labour has employed in its citizenship and multicultural policies in Britain, and to clarify theoretical locations as well as philosophical rationales of those principles. By deliberative multiculturalism, I mean a set of policies and discourses of New Labour about citizenship and multicultural issues, which emphasizes rational dialogue and mutual respect with firmly guaranteed political rights especially for minorities. New Labour tries to go beyond liberal and republican citizenship practice through enhancing deliberation, the origin of which goes back to the British tradition of parliamentary sovereignty. It also attempts to achieve a one-nation out of cultural cleavages, shifting its focus from redistribution with social rights to multicultural deliberation with political rights. I organize my discussion with a focus on the difference between two theoretical concepts: the relationship between cultural rights and individual equality, and the relationship between national boundaries and global belonging. In the concluding section, I explain three positive developments of New Labour's approach and also four limitations it has faced.     

The political economy of local government financialization and the role of policy diffusion

By analyzing why English local governments have made extensive use of long-term market loans with embedded derivatives, this paper seeks to contribute to the growing literature on local government financialization. Using an original, large-N panel dataset for the period from 1998 to 2014, we show that the configuration of the local political economy is an important driver of financialization processes: a Labour Party majority as well as fiscal and economic stress make it more likely that councils adopt risky financial instruments. As the use of financial innovations has also diffused geographically, policy diffusion impacts local governments as well. Highlighting the conditional effect of finance sector power, which only increases the use of financial innovations in very large councils, as well as the temporal dimension of fiscal and economic stress, we create ample avenues for further research.     

New Millennium,New Public Management and the New Zealand Model

Recently the much‐discussed ‘New Zealand model’ of new public management (NPM) has become significantly revised. It now lacks the theoretical coherence and the market‐led focus that it relied on between 1987 and 1996. Labour‐led governments since 1999 have undertaken gradual and pragmatic – yet significant – changes in public management structures and principles, refining and sometimes reversing the model implemented in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This article does a ‘stock‐take’ of public management developments in New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, and argues that New Zealand can no longer be viewed as a leading exponent of market‐led NPM. Some NPM principles have been refined, but others have been quietly abandoned. The new National‐led government appears unwilling to undertake radical reforms, and, while it may seek a greater role for the private sector, looks set to continue with the ‘gradual and pragmatic’ approach adopted since 1999.     

National security and surveillance: the public impact of the GCSB Amendment Bill and the Snowden revelations in New Zealand

Abstract

In New Zealand, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the extraordinary scope of the National Security Agency’s surveillance capabilities and the facilitating role of the Five Eyes alliance converged with increasing public concerns about the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment and Related Legislation Bill in 2013. This generated an intense and sustained debate in the country about surveillance policy. It was a debate in which Prime Minister John Key has featured prominently. While apparently unable to clearly refute Snowden’s claims concerning mass surveillance in New Zealand, Key’s vigorous public interventions helped counter the short-term political and diplomatic fallout. However, the long-term impact of public concerns over the surveillance policies of the Key government may be much harder to predict in what is an intimate democracy, and the prospect of substantial political blowback cannot be ruled out.     

Declarations of independence 1

Abstract

With the recent landslide electoral triumph of Tony Blair's New Labour in Britain, the question of the degree of convergence between Labour and the Conservatives in opposition takes on even greater strategic and political significance. It is generally undisputed that the terms of political debate in contemporary Britain have been altered markedly in recent years, and that this is not unrelated to Labour's self‐styled “modernisation” in the face of four consecutive election defeats. More contentious, however, is the interpretation of this trend. Has Labour abandoned its socialist and social democratic traditions, re‐projecting itself as an essentially conservative, even Thatcher‐ite, party, or has it managed to develop a novel, dynamic and modernising social democracy for new times? In this paper I seek to provide a benchmark against which such propositions can be evaluated, assessing the extent of bipartisan convergence since 1992. On the basis of comparisons of policy commitments at the 1992 and 1997 general elections, I argue that there has indeed been significant convergence between the parties, that this convergence has been driven principally by Labour, and that Britain is witnessing the emergence of a new bipartisan consensus. Such an interpretation is further reinforced by a consideration of revisions to policy since the Tories’ electoral debacle, which would merely seem to confirm the ascendancy of neo‐liberalism in contemporary Britain. I conclude by considering the likely trajectory of social and economic policy under a New Labour administration with a seemingly unassailable parliamentary majority.     

David Hare's Fictional Politics

David Hare is Britain's leading political dramatist. His Gethsemane premiered in November 2008, amidst anticipation that the play would 'crucify' New Labour. Gethsemane is in fact one of a number of fictionalisations of New Labour produced since 1997. These works have generally held up the party under Tony Blair's leadership to unmitigated criticism. Gethsemane certainly took Blair's premiership to task. However, despite increasing popular cynicism about Westminster politicians, Hare also suggested that politics remains a potential means through which honourable ends might still be achieved. However, already primed by the prevailing hostility to New Labour encouraged by earlier fictionalisations, few of those who reviewed Gethsemane noted Hare's tentative message of hope.