"Women, Identity and Private Life in Britain, 1900-50" explores the meanings and experience of home and private life for women who grew up before 1950. It considers the extent to which class, suburbanisation and historical moment as well as gender constructed women's understanding of domesticity, and discusses the part played by conceptions of home and private life in the shaping of identities. Oral narratives, fiction, autobiography and diaries are used in conjunction with psychoanalytic, linguistic and historical explanations of women's lives to map a psychological as well as a social history of women's relationship to the home in the early part of this century.
The book argues that while historically specific conceptions of sexual difference were significant in shaping women's understanding and experience of their lives, equally important were the social, cultural and psychological divisions articulated around suburbia, domestic service and aspirations of respectability. By deploying a diverse range of sources, the author concludes that to understand women's relation to the domestic and to the idea of the 'private' requires an approach which encompasses a variety of disciplines and perspectives - perspectives which include environment, class and generation as well as gender.

One of the most profound changes in British public life over the last twenty years has been the increasing concern with probity and standards. Some of that concern has been the product of scandals such as the cash for questions affair and the expenses scandal; some of it reflects the erosion of trust in politicians and in traditional approaches to government and administration. The book analyses the way new machinery and new rules have been put in place in different parts of the public sector as a protection against corruption and conflict of interest and as a spur to raising standards. It provides the first full-length treatment of the evolving integrity agenda in the United Kingdom. The book traces the impact of the Committee on Standards in Public Life which set out the Nolan principles in its first report in 1995 and examines how those principles have been applied in different sectors - Parliament, the executive, the civil service, local government and the devolved governments - and how they have been applied to the problems of party funding and lobbying. Finally, it assesses the changing level of support for the Committee's mission and the impact of its work both on the quality of public life itself and on public confidence. -- .

This book explores the process of rebuilding the Conservative Party under David Cameron's leadership since 2005. It traces the different elements of the renewal strategy - ideological reconstruction policy reappraisal and enhanced electoral appeal - and identifies constraints from different sections of the Party, including the parliamentary party and the grassroots membership. It also explores the extent to which long-standing intra-party divisions exacerbated difficulties for the exercise of leadership. The process of renewal has been through a number of stages and its progress has been indirect rather than linear. Although the project has been relatively successful in some respects the extent to which it has created a new Conservative Party remains contested. This book provides essential background and analysis, and will be of interest to students and scholars of British politics and government. -- .

To many observers, the 2008 elections augured the end of the conservative era in American politics. Buoyed by a reaction against Great Society liberalism and the Republican Party's shrewd race-based "Southern Strategy, " the modern conservative movement first enjoyed success in the late 1960s. By the 1980s, the movement had captured the White House. And in the early 2000s conservatives scaled the summit as a conservative true believer, George W. Bush, won two presidential elections - and the Republican Party captured both houses of Congress. But currently they have few credible presidential prospects. Today's most recognizable Republican, Sarah Palin, is regarded by most of the electorate as an ill-informed extremist. And the Democrats have commanding majorities in both the Senate and the House. What happened? The Crisis of Conservatism gathers a broad range of leading scholars of conservatism to assess the current state of the movement and where it is most likely headed in the near future. Featuring both empirical essays that analyze the reasons for the movement's current parlous state and more normative essays that offer new directions for the movement, the book is a comprehensive account of contemporary conservatism at its nadir. Throughout, the editors and the contributors focus on three issues. The first is the extent to which the terrain of American politics remains favorable to the Republican Party and conservative causes, notwithstanding the Obama victory of 2008. The second is the strategic ability of the Republicans and the wider conservative movement to renew their strength after the shattering experience of the past few years. The third issue they focus on is the extent to which conservative attitudes and values, policy preferences and impulses of the period since 1980 have in fact created a new consensus, one which the Obama administration will find it difficult to escape, regardless of his "change " rhetoric. They conclude that if conservatism does in fact remain a powerful shaper of the electorate's values, then the American right could very well reconfigure itself and begin the journey back to credibility and power.

Forging a Discipline analyses the growth of the academic discipline of politics and international relations at Oxford University over the last hundred years. This century marked the maturation and professionalization of social science disciplines such as political science, economics, and sociology in the world's leading universities. The Oxford story of teaching and research in politics provides one case study of this transformation, and the contributors aim to use its specifics better to understand this general process. In their introductory and concluding chapters the Editors argue that Oxford is a critical case to consider because several aspects of the university and its organization seem, at first glance, to militate against disciplinary development and growth. Oxford's institutional structure in which colleges enjoyed autonomy from the central university until quite recently, its proximity to the practice of government and politics through the supply of a steady stream of senior administrators, politicians and prime ministers, and its emphasis on undergraduate teaching through intensive small group tutorials all distinguish the development of teaching and research on politics in the university from such competitors as Manchester or the LSE as explained in one of the contributions. These themes inform the book's chapters in which the contributors examine the founding of the first dedicated position in political science in the university, the study of the British Constitution and the development of electoral studies, the introduction and consolidation of international relations into the Oxford social science curriculum in contrast to the way in which war studies emerged, the commitment to research and teaching in political theory, the careful harvesting of area studies, particularly of Latin America and Eastern Europe including Russia, and the distinctive role of Oxford's two social science graduate colleges, Nuffield and St Antony's, in fostering a graduate programme of study and research. What emerges from these historically researched and analytical accounts is the surprising capacity of members of the politics discipline at Oxford to forge a leading place for their scholarly perspectives and research in such core parts of the discipline as political theory, the study of comparative politics as a subject rather than as an area, ideas about order in international relations and the scientific study of elections in Britain and comparatively. That these achievements occurred in a university lacking the formal system of hierarchy and, until the last decade, departmentalization makes this volume a valuable addition to studies of the professionalization of social science research and teaching in modern universities.

This textbook provides students of US Politics with an informed scholarly analysis of recent developments in the American political environment, using historical background to contextualize contemporary issues. As the ninth edition, this book reviews a time of political controversy in the United States, touching on topics such as gender, economic policy, gun control, immigration, the media, healthcare, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the widespread social protests against police brutality. The book looks both backwards to Trump's presidency and forward to Biden's. Ultimately, the editors and contributors evaluate the significance of these events on the future of American politics, providing a perspective that is at once broad and meticulous.

Crisis of Conservatism? assesses the status of American conservatism-its politics, its allies in the Republican Party, and the struggle for the soul of the conservative movement that became especially acute with the controversial policies of the Bush administration and Republican losses in the 2006 and 2008 elections. What do different types of conservatives believe? How much do they have in common? How strong is the conservative movement in the United States, and what impact does it have on the Republican Party? Can conservatives and Republicans find in opposition a unity which had shattered as a result of being in power? To what degree do conservative ideas represent the mainstream of political beliefs in the United States? In short, is there the crisis of conservatism that some thought apparent as a result of the administration of George W. Bush? The book's contributors, a broad array of leading scholars of conservatism, identify a range of tensions in the conservative movement and the Republican Party, tensions over what conservatism is and should be, over what conservatives should do when in power, and over how conservatives should govern. Views differ a great deal, both between the public and conservative elite groups and among conservative elites themselves. This is balanced by the tendency of many in the general public to identify themselves as conservatives and by the vibrant intellectual life and vitality of conservative elites. In brief, Crisis of Conservatism? analyzes a conservative movement that seemed to be in crisis in the wake of the 2008 election and that remains beset by many problems and divisions but has fundamental strengths, both in the underlying proclivity of much of the American public to see itself as conservative and in the passion of conservative activists.

One of the most profound changes in British public life over the last twenty years has been the increasing concern with probity and standards. Some of that concern has been the product of scandals such as the cash for questions affair and the expenses scandal; some of it reflects the erosion of trust in politicians and in traditional approaches to government and administration. The book analyses the way new machinery and new rules have been put in place in different parts of the public sector as a protection against corruption and conflict of interest and as a spur to raising standards. It provides the first full-length treatment of the evolving integrity agenda in the United Kingdom. The book traces the impact of the Committee on Standards in Public Life which set out the Nolan principles in its first report in 1995 and examines how those principles have been applied in different sectors - Parliament, the executive, the civil service, local government and the devolved governments - and how they have been applied to the problems of party funding and lobbying. Finally, it assesses the changing level of support for the Committee's mission and the impact of its work both on the quality of public life itself and on public confidence. -- .

This text offers a timely, comprehensive, and thought-provoking assessment of government, politics, and policy in the United States. Written by a new, international team of leading scholars and focused on the trends of the 1990s, this book sets the scene for a thorough understanding of American politics into the new century. Part One concentrates on the institutional framework of American government; Part Two examines the parties, pressure groups, and electoral system and the ways in which these dynamic forces channel public opinion and shape the political agenda; Part Three surveys both the substance and the process of public policy in three key areas -- the economy, social policy, and foreign policy; Part Four provides brief overviews of some issues of contemporary political controversy -- affirmative action, campaign finance reform, the role of the media, education, and city governance; Part Five assesses the state of American politics at the century's end.