Abstract
This book examines an important and internationally under-studied component of health policy: the role of consumer groups. It is the sort of thing political studies in the UK desperately needs: a rigorous qualitative study of a major issue. Drawing on around 70 interviews and a survey, it examines how consumer groups form, their different types, their strategies and their interactions with political institutions and the media. The information it contains about how to design, organise and report a serious qualitative study of political processes makes it a valuable example for those new to qualitative research in politics.
Much of the resulting book amounts to a good users' guide to the Westminster-Whitehall political system. Interviewees and authors are especially interesting when they reflect on the choice and effectiveness of lobbying and media strategies, and the dynamics of group formation and strategies are illuminated by the cases here.
The key finding is cheering, manna for the pluralist heaven: consumer groups are at least partially integrated into policy-making as a result of their membership, credibility, legitimacy and information (they are insiders, if not as much as professionals). But there is nothing to assure the reader of their legitimacy as a voice of the patient. Pluralist politics and policy-making in Whitehall might not mean real integration of patient voices into health services (which, for all we know, already happens on the doctor-patient level – something consumer groups are unlikely to say).
The book is completely insensitive to devolution – flagged on page 1 when it says, obscurely, that it studies groups ‘on the national level’. What that turns out to mean is a study of groups (territorial level unspecified) that do business in SW1. Those groups' interactions with the devolved political systems, and the ecologies of groups outside England, remain to be studied and we can only hope that the omission inspires research on the model of this important book.
Scott Greer
(University of Michigan)
Matt Beech has produced a lively, accessible and combative account of the political philosophy of New Labour. He argues that New Labour should be seen as being rooted firmly in the British social democratic tradition, committed to notions of equality and community that are similar to earlier generations of social democrats and holding a positive conception of liberty, which distinguishes New Labour from the New Right. The book is divided into two broad sections – the first covering the intellectual history of the Labour party from its nineteenth-century origins through to the advent of New Labour. The second section provides a philosophical discussion of New Labour's conception of liberty, equality and community and democracy. The historical analysis is done thoroughly and benefits from a number of elite interviews with key opinion formers and critics of New Labour.
The discussion of liberty is also done well and clearly establishes that New Labour holds to a positive conception of freedom, against radical left critics who have asserted that New Labour is no more than a continuation of the New Right.
On community, a convincing account of the similarities between the Edwardian socialist notion of community and New Labour's is given. However, more could have been said on the possible influence of dependency theories and the ‘reciprocity principle’. The author also states that New Labour has been decentralist in terms of governance but neglects the strongly centralising instinct of some aspects of the government.
My main difficulty however lies with Beech's treatment of equality. Beech argues that New Labour hold in fact a similar position on equality to previous social democrats since nobody has ever argued for complete equality of outcome but rather only that priority in public spending should be given to the poor. This is problematic since traditional social democrats maintained that the aim of giving priority to the poor was to raise their absolute and their relative position and to redress unfair market outcomes – what New Labour's position is on these vital issues is not discussed here, which is in my view where New Labour is most clearly outside of the British social democratic tradition.
Overall then the book is an important contribution and should be taken seriously for at least raising the issue of New Labour's philosophical position.
Kevin Hickson
(University of Liverpool)
Frank Brenchley's book does not really have any grandiose aims or objectives. Rather modestly, he simply states that he wants to study the process of British foreign policy-making, an issue which is often overlooked by academics. As the Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs in the Foreign Office during the Arab–Israel war of 1967 and its aftermath, Brenchley aims here to use his considerable personal knowledge of the issue, combined with a detailed and rigorous review of the existing documentary sources available, to give a unique and very insightful account of the run-up to the Six Day War and the political fallout in the principally affected countries, especially Britain.
This book certainly fleshes out the existing accounts of this conflict, which tend to be both partisan and patchy. Brenchley's study is extremely detailed, providing information and evidence from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Britain and the United States primarily. Due to the complexity of the conflict and its discussion at the United Nations, he also briefly considers the views and activities of Sudan, France, USSR, Sweden, Brazil and Argentina as well as some of the internal decision-making processes at the UN. This is a truly excellent book, jam-packed with detail. Due to its very specific nature, it is a snapshot into the complex relationship between Israel and its neighbours, with issues such as the calls of the Palestinians for a homeland largely overlooked. However, the book does not claim to consider these issues and should not be criticised for maintaining its focus.
This book is an interesting mix between an academic work and a personal account and it does both well and without detracting from the academic worth of the publication. It covers a very specific period in Middle Eastern history and considers it in great depth and detail. It is an excellent read for undergraduates and academics alike, although its complexity might be a little overwhelming for inexperienced undergraduates.
Victoria Honeyman
(University of Leeds)
Christopher Bryant's analysis of ‘Britain’ is a worthy attempt to address a series of questions that do not fit easily within one volume. Addressing the question of Britain or Great Britain from political and sociological directions, the book provides a wide range of statistical data alongside discussion of the major literatures around English, Scottish and Welsh nationalism. The first chapter deals with theoretical issues of identification with nations/nation states, making substantial use of Colley's Forging the Nation. Scotland and Wales are discussed in separate chapters, as is England, and the book also includes, somewhat eccentrically, a separate chapter entitled ‘The English Regions: Who Cares?’, looking at the recent attempts to establish regional assemblies in England and the existence of ‘cultural differences’ within England. In conclusion, a single chapter, ‘Britain: Relating to Others’ discusses both Britain's relationship to the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the Commonwealth and the European Union. The conclusion speculates about future developments, drawing on Quebec and Catalonia, and re-examines Colley's concept of ‘forging the nation’.
This is an interesting book, containing a good mixture of up-to-date statistical data and covering all of the literature in each of the respective chapters. Completing it, however, I was left feeling somewhat dissatisfied. The target audience of the book is not clear. In structure and in much of the basic discussion it reads like an undergraduate textbook-style publication, but it is laden throughout with somewhat eccentric personal observations. A number of examples: ‘it is hard to deny that a reconstruction of some sort is necessary if Britain is to endure’ (p. 12); ‘The idea of identifying with British economic success, so long far-fetched, is less far-fetched than it used to be’ (p. 44); ‘Cymru-Wales is a version of Wales in which women seek visible participation as never before’ (p. 145); ‘In 2004 in the first North-East referendum only 22.1 per cent voted in favour of an assembly with very few powers … In the second in … well who knows?’ (p. 235). Observations such as this are virtually impossible to substantiate (there are many reasons why a second north-east referendum might never happen, for instance) and detract from the sound discussion underlying them.
More dissatisfaction is derived from chapter 7 – although space is always limited, I do not think shoving both parts of Ireland, and Europe and the Commonwealth into a single chapter makes any sense. The discussion of each of them is necessarily truncated, and Northern Irish British readers in particular would be unhappy to see their experience of the British state squeezed in this way (particularly containing odd statements like ‘Northern Ireland … has demanded attention but in its sectarianism and its violence it only confirms that it is unBritish’ [sic]). The map at the beginning of the first chapter, oddly, omits the island of Ireland entirely while referring to the ‘Monmouthshire question’. Likewise, Britain in Europe demands signposts to a huge range of discussions, and only a few are forthcoming.
That said, this is a useful introduction to a broader range of debates. It is particularly useful to see a discussion of Scottish and Welsh identity in the broader context of British identity and statehood. Also, it is probably the first time that London, Cornwall and the north-east of England have gained the degree of attention that they merit from any book discussing territorial and cultural identity within Britain, and this is an advance well worth making. The four types of England – Anglo-British England, Little England, English England and Cosmopolitan England – are similarly an excellent starting point for debate, and it is good to see these versions of English identity played up within the overall discussion of Britain and the British state, despite the (accurate) argument that many white English continue to conflate England, Britain and the UK. Readers familiar with devolution, state structures and national/regional identity will find little here with which they are unfamiliar (except a good quantity of up-to-date details from the press and public life).
Mark Sandford
(University College London)
Fightback! examines the efforts by the traditional right of the British Labour party to ‘rescue’ the party from the trade union-dominated left in the 1970s and 1980s. The story is one of ‘moderate trade unionists and parliamentarians winning control of the NEC and gradually implementing reforms which helped make the party electable’ (p. 7). Hayter pays special attention to the various interest groupings with a stake in the party vis-à-vis the context of a continuous electoral battering from Labour's Conservative opponents. The book provides a detailed analysis of the twists and turns involved in leading an embattled party back out of the political wilderness and on to the electoral battlefield (p. 183). Perhaps for the first time we catch a glimpse of the important role played by key actors who were subsequently rewarded with public office in successive New Labour governments under Tony Blair. The book's chronological review chapters will appeal to labour movement scholars who wish to gain a sound empirical understanding of the roots and trajectory of New Labour's political project.
Overall this is an excellent book. Lucid and concise, it unpacks several fascinating episodes which give the reader a much soberer impression of the transformation of Labour from within. Much of the empirical evidence has been plucked from the transcriptions of dozens of interviews with key actors and the result is a methodical analysis of the topic under study. The fact that the book is extremely accessible and engrossing may also have something to do with the fact that it is written from the perspective of someone who was actively involved in efforts to turn Labour's fortunes around. However, Hayter's thick interpretation of behind-the-scenes manoeuvres should not detract from what is a fairly objective critique of the British Labour party during a significant phase in its ideological and political evolution.
Aaron Edwards
(Queen's University Belfast)
The central aim of these two books is to examine the core institutions and processes of the British political system, and to account for the variety of changes that have taken place in this regard under the New Labour governments from 1997. Aimed primarily at an undergraduate audience (although the text by Judge is notably more advanced), they provide a clear, accessible and useful overview of these issues.
The key theme of Political Institutions in the United Kingdom, by David Judge, concerns the debate ‘about institutional configurations and interactions at the centre of UK government’ (p. 146). In particular, the chief task is to account for the changing nature of Britain's institutional landscape over the last nine years. Adopting a historical institutionalist perspective, the main argument is that these changes have developed, in a ‘path-dependent’ manner, from within a distinct set of political structures that are underpinned by a series of enduring ‘norms, values and meanings prescribing legitimate government’ (p. 26). These derive from the ‘Westminster model’, which forms the dominant discourse for determining ‘appropriate’ political behaviour in Britain. For Judge, therefore, the constraints imposed by the Westminster model mean that: ‘institutional development in the UK in the 21st Century is constrained by a path determined by the preexisting configuration of the parliamentary state’ (p. 260).
Following a wide-ranging review of the institutionalist literature, the book proceeds to a highly detailed empirical account of continuity and change in a broad variety of institutions and processes. These include the central mechanisms of parliament (the Commons and the Lords), the monarchy, the party system, the judiciary and the civil service, as well as the respective territorial institutions of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. The rise of multi-layered governance and the implications of the ongoing processes of ‘agencification’ and ‘marketisation’ are also discussed.
While New Labour's reforms are generally perceived as a radical departure from the British political norm, this analysis also draws out a series of deeper continuities, both with the reforms introduced by the Conservative governments from 1979 to 1997, as well as with the underlying principles of the Westminster model. As Judge puts it, ‘the norms, values and meanings of the Westminster model still inform the institutional interactions of state institutions … and still prescribe the relationship between formal political institutions and citizens’ (pp. 278–9).
Pitched, as its author admits, at a slightly unusual midway level between ‘beginner’ and ‘advanced’ texts on British politics, this book succeeds, on the whole, in providing a lucid, interesting and engaging examination of Britain's political institutions. Just two (relatively minor) criticisms stand out. Firstly, I felt that the initial treatment of the institutionalist literature could have been conducted more critically, and in a manner more conducive to further theoretical development. Instead, this initial foray is limited to a descriptive account of the common themes and features within the literature, which are subsequently taken as constitutive of a ‘general’ institutionalist approach. Secondly, while the theoretical and empirical components of the book are well connected, the analytical narrative sometimes has a tendency to be overly dense, and this can make the argument difficult to follow. These points aside, however, David Judge offers an informative, authoritative and important analysis of the changing nature of Britain's core political institutions under New Labour.
On the same theme, but on a more basic level, is Politics and Power in the UK, edited by Richard Heffernan and Grahame Thompson. The key aim of this book is to examine the related issues of continuity and change, structures of power and state–society linkages in contemporary Britain. Set within the overarching theme of the role played by political institutions in shaping and distributing power in Britain, the book consists of five main chapters from a variety of authors. Respectively, these cover: the machinery of central government; centre–periphery relations; participation and dissent; policy networks and interest representation; and constitutional reform. In contrast to Political Institutions in the United Kingdom, this book also deals with these issues in a largely non-theoretical manner. Seeking to provide an explanatory outline of the subject rather than make a distinct argument of its own, the narrative is delivered in largely pragmatic terms, utilising frequent comparative examples from other political systems to illustrate the points being made.
Designed as an introductory text for an undergraduate audience, Politics and Power in the UK is not without its good points. The book is clearly written, is well organised (replete with running summaries throughout) and does cover many of the basic concepts and themes involved in the study of the British political system. However, in my view, the book also suffers from two main deficiencies. The first of these is that there is no real examination of the concept of ‘power’ itself. For a text purporting to introduce its readers to the issues of ‘politics and power’ in Britain, such an omission is clearly problematic. At the very least, I would have expected some reference to the long-running ‘faces of power’ debate highlighted by Stephen Lukes many years ago.
The second, and most serious, problem, however, concerns the level and scope of the subject matter itself. While the relatively small size of the book in comparison to most of the large-scale introductory texts on British politics may have the advantage of offering students a less daunting read, and while the style and content of the book are both appropriately pitched for its target audience, I could not help but wonder if this book really added much to what is already an overcrowded (and indeed still burgeoning) marketplace for introductory texts in this area.
In sum, taken together these two books provide a useful outline of continuity and change in Britain's core political institutions and processes since 1997. However, while Political Institutions in the United Kingdom can be taken as a ‘stand-alone’ text that will be of interest and value to both scholars and students alike, Politics and Power in the UK will perhaps be of most use to undergraduate students of British politics, and as a complementary resource to be used alongside other broader introductory texts.
Steven Kettell
(University of Warwick)
This new offering from Professor the Lord Norton of Louth is billed by the publishers as replacing his earlier work, Does Parliament Matter? (1993) to reflect the changed constitutional landscape of the United Kingdom, particularly devolution to Scotland and Wales, the incorporation of the Human Rights Act into British law, further European integration and recent reforms to parliament. It does precisely that in chapter 7, but Norton has a broader purpose.
Early on, he tells us that ‘Legislatures cannot be assessed solely in terms of their capacity to make law’ (pp. 8–9). By adapting Packenham's (1970) functions of legislatures, the author takes us beyond the pluralist view of parliament, preferring instead an institutional approach. As a result, Norton is able to focus not only on parliament's traditional role in constraining the executive, but also on the neglected area of parliament's relationship with the citizen. Parliament, he declares, has adapted its role ‘from the coercive to the persuasive’ (p. 12), from determining the outcome of public policy to giving voice to the demands of the citizen.
This theme is expanded in Part II of the book, where Norton explores the tensions inherent in Britain's representative system of government, the responsiveness of MPs to their constituents, how various interest groups seek to lobby parliament and how parliament has attempted in recent years to connect with the wider public.
Throughout, the text is laced with information from parliamentary websites and information offices, as well as drawing extensively from the works of key academics in the field and, notably, from a rich array of pertinent comments from the memoirs of former senior ministers. The book is written in a crisp, unfussy writing style, which has been honed over the years to near perfection.
For any student, or for that matter, any academic struggling to grapple with an apparently obscure area of parliamentary procedure, this text provides a clear explanation at every turn. In particular, chapter 4, ‘Policy-making: The Early Stages’, is a gem, shedding light on the neglected nooks and crannies of parliament, such as the valuable work of parliamentary counsel (p. 68) and the recent expansion of pre-legislative scrutiny (pp. 75–7). And, the best thing about this book is that it informs the reader equally as well about the House of Lords as about the House of Commons, something that few books in the field can match. In short, this excellent book confirms Lord Norton's status as Britain's leading academic on parliament and its procedures.
Mark Stuart
(University of Nottingham)
This is a first-rate discussion of the post-war intellectual history of the Labour party. The first and third sections are composed of essays on the various positions within the party (Old Left, New Left, Centre, Old Right and New Labour) and shorter commentaries on them from those involved. The second section deals with cross-cutting issues facing the party (including the ends–means division, equality and globalisation). The essays which compose the book are of a universally high quality and the list of contributors is impressive.
One minor gripe comes from the ambiguity of referring to New Labour as ‘New Right’ (p. 3) or ‘the new right wing of the Labour Party’ (p. 89) in the introduction and throughout Matt Beech's chapter (instead of, say, ‘the new, right wing of the Labour party’). This seems to imply closeness between New Labour and the wider New Right (of Hayek et al.) without making any argument to this effect. (In fact, Beech argues the opposite, that New Labour is defined by a version of egalitarianism.)
The omnipresence of Tony Crosland throughout the book confirms his place as the thinker par excellence of the post-war party, but it also reveals two sides to Crosland's thought. First, there is the socialist Crosland, an egalitarian, whose revisionism is predicated on the inevitable gradualism of Keynesianism, and whose thought seems obsolete in an era of globalisation. Second, there is the liberal Crosland, a British precursor to John Rawls, who examined the relationship between equality and freedom, and ditched much of Labour's statist baggage. As this book shows, the fight over Crosland's legacy remains central to contemporary debate.
The book is accessible enough for anyone interested in the ideas behind Labour after 1945, and will be of use to students at all levels, as well as academics, who will be particularly interested in the specific takes given by those involved.
Simon Griffiths
(London School of Economics and Political Science)
During his acceptance speech outside Downing Street on 2 May 1997, after New Labour swept to power on the back of a huge landslide victory, Blair told British and world audiences that his would be a government ‘that gives this country strength and confidence in leadership both at home and abroad, particularly in respect of Europe’. Hope, optimism, innovation, creativity and dynamism were just some of the characteristics that both supporters and critics of New Labour alike felt Blair personally, and his government in general, could bring to the governance of Britain after eighteen years of Conservative rule that climaxed, if that is an appropriate word, in the scandal-ridden Major years. Eight years on and the public, political and scholarly inquest into Blair's first two administrations has begun in earnest. Sparked in particular by the controversial decision to join UK forces with the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, but also brought on by a wider feeling that New Labour had lost direction both domestically and internationally, the amount of ink being spilled on Blair's governance of Britain is accumulating rapidly. In articles such as William Wallace's 2005 ‘The Collapse of British Foreign Policy’ we get a strong flavour of what leading commentators have begun to conclude about the New Labour project: high ambitions and lofty rhetoric undermined by short-term quick-fix policies which add up to far less than the sum of their parts.
Paul Williams is the latest scholar to explore New Labour's foreign policy in this critical, engaging, albeit slightly ‘securitised’ version of foreign policy during Blair's first two terms in office. He does so in a clear fashion that explores British foreign policy 1997–2005 through an appropriate and well thought-through structure. The first part of the book explores the underlying commitments Labour had in foreign policy terms on taking office in terms both of its traditional Labour heritage and of the shifts Blair and his Cabinet sought to bring about on taking office, especially ethically. The second part examines three fundamental relationships: with the US, with Europe/EU and with Africa/Commonwealth. The third and by some distance the longest part analyses five ‘issues’: global economic policies, defence policy, international development, humanitarian intervention and Iraq/Middle East. Williams suggests that when we come to tot up the balance sheet on New Labour's foreign policy we need to come to terms with the government's record on its commitments to multilateralism, Atlanticism, neoliberalism and implementing an ‘ethical’ foreign policy. On the evidence he presents, Williams is fairly well in line with much contemporary opinion in arguing that Blair's governments promised a lot but, like too many of their predecessors, have had considerable difficulty in putting policy statements into political practice. This represents a failing both on the part of the New Labour project but also is an indication that in the arena of foreign policy some ‘familiar’ constraints will always be in operation that serve to limit the ability of the government of a medium-sized island off the east coast of mainland Europe to exert real and lasting power and influence on the global stage.
I found this a worthwhile read, but have two criticisms. First of all, I got the impression, rightly or wrongly, that Williams is happier talking about the defence and security aspects of foreign policy than other, what we might call ‘softer’, elements. That is not to say the chapters on international political economy and so on are not well researched or written, just that if you take the hard, realist war/conflict/security/defence elements out of this book you would see how much it relies on them for its length and analytical ballast. This seems to be the product of two things: on the one hand Williams’ own research interests and on the other the post-9/11 securitisation of pretty much every foreign policy-related issue, and the feeling that Blair's foreign policy has misleadingly come to be judged on the basis of his military exploits abroad. Linked to this, my second criticism is that when judging Blair's legacy in his first two terms, surely his policy towards ‘Europe’, namely the euro, the (now defunct) European Constitution and Britain's EU partners, should be centre stage, given that Blair set his stall out to repair what he sees as years of misplaced British aloofness from Europe. Well before his election speech Blair was asking to be judged in foreign policy terms with reference to the changes he could make to British European policy; America – Williams' ‘Atlanticism’ benchmark barely featured. The author's consideration of the EU here, however, is totally dominated by analysis of Blair's approach to European defence and security, with nothing significant on the wider context of British–European relations. To give an example of how both of my criticisms are manifested in the book: in the section exploring the ‘wider impact’ of the invasion of Iraq, Williams covers its impact on the ‘war on terrorism’, the Middle East peace process and transatlantic relations. Of course they are all important, but what about the damage it did to London's relations with Paris and Bonn, to name just two obvious ones, and the prospect of Blair achieving his stated ambitions for Britain in Europe?
In sum, Williams has provided a useful addition to the emerging literature on New Labour's foreign policy. It is critical, well structured and argumentative and deserves to be read by both students and scholars alike, being particularly strong on the defence and security aspects of British foreign policy in this period. If you want to read about the wretched failings of New Labour's European policy, however, you will need to look elsewhere.
Oliver Daddow
(Loughborough University)
Contesting Rurality is a response to the emerging interest in rural issues among scholars, politicians and policy-makers, and evaluates the evolving governance and politics of rural Britain. Two chapters have a strong focus on Somerset; they were undertaken initially for the author's PhD. Examples from Somerset are used primarily to examine the changing balance of local power in the countryside and evaluate the nature of contemporary rural elites. The rest of the book considers wider rural questions. The first and final chapters discuss broad themes and concepts relating to the social, institutional and economic restructuring of rural Britain. The key argument is that there is not a ‘rural politics’ but a ‘politics of the rural’ in which the prime focus is on the definition and representation of rurality. Other chapters consider national politics and rural representation; the Countryside Alliance and rural protest; and agricultural politics.
Woods has supplied a useful addition to the literature. The information on Somerset's local governance is especially welcome because most scholarship on British local government focuses on urban topics. The study also generates notable insights into other issues such as rural electoral politics, the decline of conservatism and the Countryside Alliance. Parts of this book have an appeal beyond the research community and should interest undergraduates and a more general readership.
The author also makes a valiant attempt to create a coherent whole out of his components. His theoretical and conceptual framework is strong enough to ensure some success; however the reader is still left with the feeling of disparate elements marshalled into one volume to please the publisher. There is a sense of two or three books trying to escape from these covers and that these issues would have benefited from more extensive treatment. Perhaps the conclusions from the Somerset study could have been supplemented through analysis of another county? Nevertheless, this is a good book and would make a valuable addition to any library. It will have a permanent place in mine.
Michael Cole
(University of Plymouth)
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