Still Causing Trouble: The Conservative Parliamentary Party

There have been relatively few backbench rebellions on the Conservative benches in the Commons since 2001, but division manifested itself on three significant occasions: over the Children and Adoption Bill (when the leadership insisted on applying a whip to a vote that many thought should have been 'free'), over Lords reform (where on a free vote a majority of Conservative MPs voted against their leadership's preferred position) and over Iraq (where the divisions were smaller than on the Labour side of the House but where there was a qualitative dimension to the rebellion). Most importantly of all, the events of October 2003, when Iain Duncan Smith was removed as party leader, showed how much power remained with Conservative MPs: they initiated the vote of confidence, in which they alone participated, and the emergence of Michael Howard as the 'unity' candidate meant that the grassroots were denied any role in the change of leadership.     

The visibility of agricultural subsidies and market illusions in the Common Agricultural Policy: Some evidence from farmers' views in Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom

Abstract.   This article demonstrates that the design and nature of agricultural support schemes has an influence on farmers' perception of their level of dependence on agricultural support. While direct aid payments inform farmers about the extent to which they are subsidised, indirect support mechanisms veil the level of subsidisation, and therefore they are not fully aware of the extent to which they are supported. To test this hypothesis, we applied data from a survey of 4,500 farmers in three countries: the United Kingdom, Germany and Portugal. It is demonstrated that indirect support, such as that provided through artificially high consumer prices, gives an illusion of free and competitive markets among farmers. This 'visibility' hypothesis is evaluated against an alternative hypothesis that assumes farmers have complete, or at least a fairly comprehensive level of, information on agricultural support schemes. Our findings show that this alternative hypothesis can be ruled out.     

Wasting a Crisis? Democracy and Markets in Britain after 2007

The banking crisis of 2007-2008 briefly threatened to overturn a system of market government that had lasted for nearly three decades—a system designed to minimise democratic control over markets. The crisis drew politicians once more into financial politics and exposed bankers and banking institutions to popular criticism and control. But the development of regulatory debates, and of the institutions designed to manage the crisis, have combined to avert this threat to the established order. The crisis is being 'wasted': it is failing to produce radical reforms. The paper establishes the intellectual and institutional origins of this failure, and argues that, while the reform window is closing, it is not yet fully shut: there exists yet scope for radical argument and popular mobilisation in the creation of a financial system with fewer pathological features.     

The Political Constraints on Economic Policy in Post-1982 Mexico: The Case of Pemex

Abstract Fourteen years of market-oriented reform in Mexico have led to many economic changes. However during 1982–1994 there was relatively little change in the hydrocarbon sector. This article seeks to explain the slowness of reform essentially in political terms. While political constraints on reforming the hydrocarbons sector were genuine, it is also clear that the De la Madrid and Salinas governments chose to avoid controversial decisions in this sector as far as possible. Risk aversion seems, at least in this context, to have been a characteristic of Mexican authoritarianism during 1982–1994. Because of the inherent importance of the oil and gas sector to the Mexican economy, the slow growth of production since 1982 (largely resulting from extreme policy caution) provides a part of the explanation for the slow growth of the Mexican economy as a whole.     

The Parliamentary Party

The Conservative parliamentary party will fulfill three important functions for any incoming Conservative government: it will be the focus of attention for the national media; it will be the bulk vote that will deliver its legislative programme; it will form the talent pool from which members of any incoming government will be recruited. A majority Conservative government could see a majority of its MPs newly elected, with more Conservative women and ethnic minority MPs than ever before (although there will be little change in the socio-economic background of their MPs). These new MPs will present problems in terms of party management, although they will be less likely to rebel than longer-serving MPs. There are also relatively few signs of discontent among incumbent Conservative MPs (the article identifies the most rebellious Conservative MPs). Any new Conservative government will also have to deal with a reformed House of Lords, in which it will no longer have a majority.     

Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament

Although the political salience of nuclear disarmament has fallen dramatically since the end of the Cold War, the threat posed by nuclear weapons today remains at least as great as it was before 1989. The growing number of states either armed with or actively developing nuclear weapons programmes has placed existing control and monitoring frameworks under strain. In this article, Baroness Williams, a long time campaigner for multilateral nuclear disarmament, discusses the nature of today's nuclear threat and particularly the political challenge presented by states whose behaviour is not predictable. If further proliferation is to be prevented, the international community must renew its efforts at implementing a robust regime of control. The IAEA must be given the authority and the resources necessary to conduct inspections anywhere in the world without prior warning. At the same time, the world's nuclear states powers must begin genuine efforts at disarmament.