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Conservative plans for a coalition government, a snap General Election, Prime Ministers considering whether to resign after an electoral or referendum defeat, and the contemplation of both Labour and Conservative deals with the Liberals, SNP and Northern Ireland Unionist parties, are all aspects readily identifiable in British politics since 2010, and once again following the hung parliament in June 2017. However, secret plans for all these different scenarios were drawn up by British political leaders and advisers in the 1970s. These documents challenge the mythology that dominates historical accounts, documentary films, and television news programmes, in particular, the contention that the minority governments of this era were weak, unthinking aberrations, alien to Britain’s otherwise strong majoritarian political traditions. Using declassified internal party files, this book provides new perspectives of the strategic response to minority government during the Wilson and Callaghan Administrations of the 1970s, reveals a previously unrecognized distinct British tradition of minority government that goes beyond established international minority government theory and practice, and shows how these antecedents might apply to minority government at Westminster in 2017. Employing a new model which includes historical-political interparty comparison, this work examines how both Labour Governments and Conservative Oppositions confronted challenges ranging from legislative management and electoral timing to planning for future minority or coalition governments. This study will be invaluable to all interested in minority government and British political history, from policymakers, students, and journalists to the general public.

Does European integration contribute to, or even accelerate, the erosion of intra-party democracy? This book is about improving our understanding of political parties as democratic organisations in the context of multi-level governance. It analyses the impact of European Union (EU) membership on power dynamics, focusing on the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party (PS), and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). The purpose of this book is to investigate who within the three parties determines EU policies and selects EU specialists, such as the candidates for European parliamentary elections and EU spokespersons. The book utilises a principal-agent framework to investigate the delegation of power inside the three parties across multiple levels and faces. It draws on over 65 original interviews with EU experts from the three national parties and the Party of European Socialists (PES) and an e-mail questionnaire. This book reveals that European policy has largely remained in the hands of the party leadership. Its findings suggest that the party grassroots are interested in EU affairs, but that interest rarely translates into influence, as information asymmetry between the grassroots and the party leadership makes it very difficult for local activists to scrutinise elected politicians and to come up with their own policy proposals. As regards the selection of EU specialists, such as candidates for the European parliamentary elections, this book highlights that the parties’ processes are highly political, often informal, and in some cases, undemocratic.

This book provides an accessible account of current thinking about political corruption, recognising that the phenomenon is a serious problem: since it infringes rules defining legitimate and illegitimate means of the acquisition of wealth and the exercise of power, corruption damages the interests of the advantaged and disadvantaged alike. The advantaged find that wealth cannot be pursued and maintained safely, the disadvantaged that development is thwarted and resources redistributed from the poor to the rich. Against this background, the book takes the reader on a journey – a journey that begins with what corruption is, why its study might be important and how it can be measured. From there it moves on to explore corruption’s causes, its consequences and how it can be tackled – before finally discovering how these things are playing out in the established liberal democracies, in the former communist regimes and in what used to be commonly referred to as ‘the third world’. On the way it takes a couple of detours – first, to ascertain how the minimum of trust necessary for the corrupt transaction to take place at all is established and underwritten, and second to survey the phenomenon of scandal – to which corruption may give rise. The book is therefore offered as an informative ‘travel guide’ of potential interest to journalists and policy makers as well as to students and academics researching matters on which political corruption has a bearing.

Drawing on the insights of political theory as well as empirical and comparative government, the book provides an up-to-date overview of the theories and practice of referendums and initiatives around the world. The book discusses if we ought to hold more referendums, and how the processes of direct democracy have been used – and occasionally abused -around the world.

Everyday Life after the Conflict addresses the intersection the processes of conflict transformation, devolution and daily life in Northern Ireland in a rigorous and systematic fashion. Bringing together new research from established academics, new voices and civil society actors, this book documents the changes that have occurred in people's everyday lives as the region moves away from a violent past. The overall findings are that there is both change and no change – an understandable conclusion in the context that overcoming generations of distrust and suspicion is a long and difficult process. Designing new constitutional arrangements to overcome conflict is not the same as building a peaceful and inclusive society that transforms the everyday lives of people. Thus, the book asks several questions that have until now gone under-researched: How have unprecedented transformations in the political culture and economic well-being of Northern Ireland impacted upon various aspects of people's lives? What have these changes meant for such politically charged issues as health care, employment, education, segregated living, gender and socio-economic inequality? What improvements to people's day-to-day lives have occurred and what more needs to be done? Using new empirical material, the book charts the impact of devolution and conflict transformation in four parts: an overview of the changes is followed by chapters exploring issues of space, place and human relations. The third part looks at economic and social life while a concluding chapter takes a comparative approach by addressing the differences and similarities between the Northern Irish and Scottish experiences

This book discusses the framing of referendum campaigns in the news media, focusing particularly on the case of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Using a comprehensive content analysis of print and broadcast coverage as well as in-depth interviews with broadcast journalists and their sources during this campaign, it provides an account of how journalists construct the frames that define their coverage of contested political campaigns. It views the mediation process from the perspective of those who participate directly in it, namely journalists and political communicators. It puts forward an original theoretical model to account more broadly for frame building in the context of referendums in Western media systems, using insights from this and from other cases. The book makes an original contribution to the study of media frames during referendums.

This book argues for greater openness in the ways we approach human rights and international rights promotion, and in so doing brings some new understanding to old debates. Starting with the realities of abuse rather than the liberal architecture of rights, it casts human rights as a language for probing the political dimensions of suffering. Seen in this context, the predominant Western models of right generate a substantial but also problematic and not always emancipatory array of practices. These models are far from answering the questions about the nature of political community that are raised by the systemic infliction of suffering. Rather than a simple message from ‘us’ to ‘them’, then, rights promotion is a long and difficult conversation about the relationship between political organisations and suffering. Three case studies are explored: the Tiananmen Square massacre, East Timor's violent modern history and the circumstances of indigenous Australians. The purpose of these discussions is not to elaborate on a new theory of rights, but to work towards rights practices that are more responsive to the spectrum of injury that we inflict and endure.

The consumer co-operative movement was one of the most important popular movements in inter-war Europe, but remains under-researched by historians in comparison to other social movements, especially with regard to its international dimensions. From 1895, the co-operative movement also had its own international organisation, the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA). This book explores the transnational history of consumer co-operation from the establishment of the movement in the second half of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of the Second World War, focusing in particular on co-operation in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). The co-operative movement was especially strong throughout the region and the Nordic co-operative federations played a prominent role in the ICA. The fundamental question explored in the book concerns the meaning of co-operation: was it a social movement or an economic enterprise? Did it aspire to challenge capitalism or to reform it? Did it contain at its heart a political vision for the transformation of society or was it simply a practical guide for organising a business? I argue that it was both, but that an examination of the debates over the different meanings of co-operation can also illuminate broader questions about the emergence of consumer interests in the first half of the twentieth century, especially in a transnational context. Studying the Nordic co-operative movement also helps to shed light on the growing international interest in this region and the emergence of a Nordic “middle way” during the 1930s.

This book tells the story of the unexpected 2017 British general election and its equally unexpected outcome: the Conservatives’ loss of their parliamentary majority and Theresa May’s return at the head of a minority government. As with previous volumes in the Britain at the polls series, it provides readers with a series of interpretations of the election and expert accounts of the major political parties, including their responses to the 2016 Brexit referendum. Again in keeping with previous volumes, the book does not seek to provide a blow-by-blow account of the 2017 election campaign, nor does it seek to provide a detailed survey-based account of voting behaviour. Instead, it offers readers a broad analysis of recent political, economic and social developments and assesses their impact on the election outcome. It also addresses questions about the state of the political parties and the party system in the wake of the election, and reflects on the future of British electoral and party politics.

Paradoxes of Internationalization deals with British and German trade union responses to the internationalization of corporate structures and strategies at Ford and General Motors between the late 1960s and the early twenty-first century. Based on research in more than a dozen archives in Britain, Germany and the United States, the book is unique in its attempt to bridge historical and contemporary approaches to the study of trade union politics in multinational firms. Conceptually, Paradoxes of Internationalization draws not only on the mainstream industrial relations literature but also on scholarship in comparative and international political economy, transnational history and nationalism studies. The book points to the paradoxical effects of internationalization processes. First, it demonstrates how internationalization reinforced trade unions’ national identities and allegiances. Second, the book highlights that internationalization made domestic trade union practices more similar in some respects, while it simultaneously contributed to the re-creation of diversity between and within the two countries. Third, the book shows that investment competition was paradoxically the most important precondition for the emergence of cross-border cooperation initiatives although the interest-driven nature of these initiatives also limited their scope.

The radical who is transformed into a conservative is a common theme in political history. Benito Mussolini, the Italian socialist who became a fascist, is the best-known example, but there have been many others, including the numerous American Trotskyists and Marxists who later emerged as neo-conservatives, anti-communists or, in some instances, McCarthyists. The politics of betrayal examines why several one-time radicals subsequently became parts of the establishment in various countries, including the former Black Panther Party leader turned Republican Eldridge Cleaver, the Australian communist Adela Pankhurst who became an admirer of the Nazis, and the ex-radical journalist Christopher Hitchens, whose defection to the camp of George W. Bush's neo-conservatives following 11 September 2001 offers one of the most startling examples of the phenomenon in recent times. How and why do so many radicals betray the cause± Is it simply a reaction to political defeat± Were their politics always problematic, even as radicals± Were the ex-radicals psychologically flawed to begin with± What implications does it have for left politics± This book, the first of its kind, answers these and more questions.

This book examines the politics of health promotion in Denmark and England. Based on two areas of health interventions, namely obesity control and mental recovery, the book analyses how public health policies have shifted since the 1980s from a dual strategy of prevention – by modifying the physical environment – and curation to a strategy of health promotion. This involves a new kind of power exercised over and through the subjectivity not only of the ill and sick, but, in principle, all citizens. Thus, the aim of health promotion is not only to prevent or cure illness, but to improve health, a political ambition that has no immanent limits. While health promotion is endorsing a soft mode of power that works through the subjectivity and freedom of those over whom it is exercised, its drive to indefinitely improve the health of each and all calls for concern. Inspired by Michel Foucault, the book employs the conceptual terms constructivist neoliberalism and optimistic vitalism to grasp this phenomenon. Whereas the former denotes a general mode of power working through the mobilization of the self-steering capacities of individuals and groups, the latter term points to the specific mode of biopower by which public authorities constantly seek to augment the health and productive capacities of its citizens.

Identity is often regarded as something that is possessed by individuals, states, and other agents. In this edited collection, identity is explored across a range of approaches and under-explored case studies with a view to making visible its fractured, contingent, and dynamic features. The book brings together themes of belonging and exclusion, identity formation and fragmentation. It also examines how identity functions in discourse, and the effects it produces, both materially and in ideational terms. Taking in case studies from Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, the various chapters interrogate identity through formal governing mechanisms, popular culture and place. These studies demonstrate the complex and fluid nature of identity and identity practices, as well as implications for theorising identity.

This is the definitive study of the Irish general election of 2016 – the most dramatic election in a generation, which among other things resulted in the worst electoral outcome for Ireland’s established parties, the most fractionalized party system in the history of the state, and the emergence of new parties and groups, some of these of a ‘populist’ hue. This was one of the most volatile elections in Ireland (and among one of the most volatile elections in Europe), with among the lowest of election turnouts in the state’s history. These outcomes follow a pattern seen across a number of Western Europe’s established democracies in which the ‘deep crisis’ of the Great Recession has wreaked havoc on party systems. The objective of this book is to assess this most extraordinary of Irish elections both in its Irish and wider cross-national context. With contributions from leading scholars on Irish elections and parties, and using a unique dataset – the Irish National Election Study (INES) 2016 – this volume explores voting patterns at Ireland’s first post crisis election and it considers the implications for the electoral landscape and politics in Ireland. This book will be of interest to scholars of parties and elections. It should provide important supplementary reading to any university courses on Irish politics. And it should also be of interest to general readers interested in contemporary Irish affairs.

Why did the Russian take-over of Crimea come as a surprise to so many observers in the academic practitioner and global-citizen arenas? The answer presented in this book is a complex one, rooted in late-Cold War dualities but also in the variegated policy patterns of the two powers after 1991. This book highlights the key developmental stages in the evolution of the Russian-American relationship in the post-Cold War world. The 2014 crisis was provoked by conflicting perspectives over the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, the expansion of NATO to include former communist allies of Russia as well as three of its former republics, the American decision to invade Iraq in 2003, and the Russian move to invade Georgia in 2008. This book uses a number of key theories in political science to create a framework for analysis and to outline policy options for the future. It is vital that the attentive public confront the questions raised in these pages in order to control the reflexive and knee-jerk reactions to all points of conflict that emerge on a regular basis between America and Russia.Key topics include struggles over the Balkans, the expansion of NATO, the challenges posed by terrorism to both nations, wars fought by both powers in the first decade of the twenty-first century, conflict over missile defence, reactions to post-2011 turmoil in the Middle East, and the mutual interest in establishing priorities in Asia.

This book offers a refreshing new analysis of the role of workers both in Tito's Yugoslavia and in the subsequent Serbian revolution against Milošević in October 2000. The authors argue that Tito and the Communist leadership of Yugoslavia saw self-management as a modernising project to compete with the west, and as a disciplining tool for workers in the enterprise. The socialist ideals of self-management were subsequently corrupted by Yugoslavia's turn to the market. The authors then move on to examine the central role of ordinary workers in overthrowing the nationalist regime of Milošević and present an account which runs contrary to many descriptions of ’labour weakness’ in post Communist states. Organised labour should be studied as a movement in and for itself rather than as a passive object of external forces. Two labour movement waves have emerged under post Communism, the first an expression of desire for democracy, the second as a collaboration and clientelism. A third wave, against the ravages of neoliberalism, is only just emerging.