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The question of the United Kingdom's survival, once taken for
granted, now looms large in British politics. This book brings to
life the historical roots of a contemporary crisis, revealing the
assumptions underlying how politicians and bureaucrats make sense
of the Union. Why has the political class struggled to engage
productively with devolution? Has the growing disenchantment of
English voters with a detached central government influenced how
MPs and civil servants regard the UK's territorial integrity? And
how have seismic events fuelled the tensions between Westminster
and the devolved administrations, from the election of an SNP
government and the 2014 Scottish referendum to Brexit and the
pandemic? Politics today is dominated by a profound sense of
pessimism about the long-term viability of the UK. Where do we go
from here? 'Fractured Union' offers a vivid account of the
country's gradual loss of unity, and illuminates the forces and
pressures which will shape the future of its nations and peoples.
As nationalisms gain ground across Scotland, Wales, Northern
Ireland and England, this book issues a sharp challenge to those
who believe in a united kingdom: deliver better and more responsive
government, or risk seeing the UK fall apart.
The study of British politics has been reinvigorated in recent
years as a generation of new scholars seeks to build-upon a
distinct disciplinary heritage while also exploring new empirical
territory, and finds much support and encouragement from previous
generations in forging new grounds in relation to theory and
methods. It is in this context that The Oxford Handbook of British
Politics has been conceived. The central ambition of the Handbook
is not just to illustrate both the breadth and depth of scholarship
that is to be found within the field. It also seeks to demonstrate
the vibrancy and critical self-reflection that has cultivated a
much sharper and engaging, and notably less insular, approach to
the terrain it seeks to explore and understand. In this emphasis on
critical engagement, disciplinary evolution, and a commitment to
shaping rather than re-stating the discipline The Oxford Handbook
of British Politics is consciously distinctive.
In showcasing the diversity now found in the analysis of British
politics, the Handbook is built upon three foundations. The first
principle that underpins the volume is a broad understanding of
'the political'. It covers a much broader range of topics, themes
and issues than would commonly be found within a book on British
politics. This emphasis on an inclusive approach also characterizes
the second principle that has shaped this collection--namely,
diversity in relation to commissioned authors. The final principle
focuses on the distinctiveness of the study of British politics.
Each chapter seeks to reflect on what is distinctive--both in terms
of the empirical nature of the issue of concern, and the theories
and methods that have been deployed to unravel the nature and
causes of the debate. The result is a unique volume that:
draws-upon the intellectual strengths of the study of British
politics; reflects the innate diversity and inclusiveness of the
discipline; isolates certain distinctive issues and then reflects
on their broader international relevance; and finally looks to the
future by pointing towards emerging or overlooked areas of
research.
This book evaluates the claim that in order to explore the changing
social foundations of global power relations today, we need to
include in our analysis an understanding of global civil society,
particularly if we also wish to raise ethical questions about the
changing political and institutional practices of transnational
governance. Bridging the normative concerns of political theorists
with the historical and institutional focus of scholars of
international relations and international political economy, this
book is of broad interest to students and researchers concerned
with international relations, civil society, global governance and
ethics.
This book evaluates the claim that in order to explore the changing
social foundations of global power relations today, we need to
include in our analysis an understanding of global civil society,
particularly if we also wish to raise ethical questions about the
changing political and institutional practices of transnational
governance. The authors engage directly with the notion of global
civil society in order to examine the ethical, social, and
political conditions that make certain kinds of globalizing
practices a reality today. They explore and utilise the normative
dimensions of the civil society discourse to further debate about
the meaning of citizenship in a world of multi-level governance, as
well as the changing characteristics of political community and
democracy. Bridging the normative concerns of political theorists
with the historical and institutional focus of scholars of
international relations and international political economy, this
book will be of broad interest to students and researchers
concerned with international relations, civil society, global
governance and ethics.
Environmental sustainability has become one of the most salient issues on the policy agenda of nation-states. This book argues that planning is seldom credited by advocates of environmental politics. The authors, leading scholars in the field, explore the relationship between environmental sustainability - one of the most important innovations in recent political discourse and planning, an idea which has slipped from public attention recently.
Exploring the relationship between environmental sustainability and
planning, this textbook explores the different implications of
sustainability for public planning in the industrialized world.
Environmental sustainability has become one of the most salient
issues on the policy agenda of nation-states in the late 20th
century. However, this book argues that planning is often, wrongly,
ignored by advocates of environmental politics. Several major
questions are addressed in this volume: what are the consequences
of environmental sustainability for current patterns of social
steering by the state and socio-economic planning?; what lessons do
earlier experiences of social and economic planning in Western
democracies have for future sustainability planners?; and what
challenges are generated for conventional socio-economic management
by specifically environmental planners? These issues are explored
by contributors from different intellectual traditions.
Winner of the Political Studies Association WJM MacKenzie Prize for
best book of 2014 The Politics of English Nationhood supplies the
first comprehensive overview of the evidence, research and major
arguments relating to the revival of Englishness, exploring its
varied, and often overlooked, political ramifications and
dimensions. It examines the difficulties which the major political
parties have encountered in dealing with 'the English question'
against the backdrop of the diminishing hold of established ideas
of British government and national identity in the final years of
the last century. And it explores a range of factors-including
insecurities generated by economic change, Euroscepticism, and a
growing sense of cultural anxiety - which helped make the renewal
of Englishness appealing and imperative, prior to the introduction
of devolution by the first Blair government, a policy which also
gave this process a further impetus. The book therefore provides a
powerful challenge to the two established orthodoxies in this area.
These either maintain that the English are dispositionally unable
to assert their own nationhood outside the framework of the British
state, or point to the supposed resurgence of a resentful and
reactive sense of English nationalism. This volume instead
demonstrates that a renewed, resonant and internally divided sense
of English nationhood is apparent across the lines of class,
geography, age, and ethnicity. And it identifies several distinct
strands of national identity that have emerged in this period,
contrasting the appearance of populist and resentful forms of
English nationalism with an embedded and deeply rooted sense of
conservative Englishness and attempts to reconstruct a more liberal
and civic idea of a multicultural England. This volume also
includes a wide-ranging analysis of the culturally rooted revival
of Englishness, drawing out the political dimensions and
implications of this re-emerging form of national consciousness.
The study of British politics has been reinvigorated in recent
years as a generation of new scholars seeks to build-upon a
distinct disciplinary heritage while also exploring new empirical
territory, and finds much support and encouragement from previous
generations in forging new grounds in relation to theory and
methods. It is in this context that The Oxford Handbook of British
Politics has been conceived. The central ambition of the Handbook
is not just to illustrate both the breadth and depth of scholarship
that is to be found within the field. It also seeks to demonstrate
the vibrancy and critical self-reflection that has cultivated a
much sharper and engaging, and notably less insular, approach to
the terrain it seeks to explore and understand. In this emphasis on
critical engagement, disciplinary evolution, and a commitment to
shaping rather than re-stating the discipline The Oxford Handbook
of British Politics is consciously distinctive.
In showcasing the diversity now found in the analysis of British
politics, the Handbook is built upon three foundations. The first
principle that underpins the volume is a broad understanding of
'the political'. It covers a much broader range of topics, themes
and issues than would commonly be found within a book on British
politics. This emphasis on an inclusive approach also characterizes
the second principle that has shaped this collection--namely,
diversity in relation to commissioned authors. The final principle
focuses on the distinctiveness of the study of British politics.
Each chapter seeks to reflect on what is distinctive--both in terms
of the empirical nature of the issue of concern, and the theories
and methods that have been deployed to unravel the nature and
causes of the debate. The result is a unique volume that:
draws-upon the intellectual strengths of the study of British
politics; reflects the innate diversity and inclusiveness of the
discipline; isolates certain distinctive issues and then reflects
on their broader international relevance; and finally looks to the
future by pointing towards emerging or overlooked areas of
research.
England is ruled directly from Westminster by institutions and
parties that are both English and British. The non-recognition of
England reflects a longstanding assumption of 'unionist statecraft'
that to draw a distinction between what is English and what is
British risks destabilising the union state. The book examines
evidence that this conflation of England and Britain is growing
harder to sustain, in light of increasing political divergence
between the nations of the UK and the awakening of English national
identity. These trends were reflected in the 2016 vote to leave the
European Union, driven predominantly by English voters (outside
London). Brexit was motivated in part by a desire to restore the
primacy of the Westminster Parliament, but there are countervailing
pressures for England to gain its own representative institutions,
and for devolution to England's cities and regions. The book
presents competing interpretations of the state of English
nationhood, examining the views that little of significance has
changed, that Englishness has been captured by populist
nationalism, and that a more progressive, inclusive Englishness is
struggling to emerge. We conclude that England's national
consciousness remains fragmented due to deep cleavages in its
political culture, and the absence of a reflective national
conversation about England's identity and relationship with the
rest of the UK and the wider world. Brexit was a (largely) English
revolt, tapping into unease about England's place within two
intersecting Unions (British and European), but it is easier to
identify what the nation spoke against than what it voted for.
The Politics of English Nationhood supplies the first comprehensive
overview of the evidence, research and major arguments relating to
the revival of Englishness, exploring its varied, and often
overlooked, political ramifications and dimensions. It examines the
difficulties which the major political parties have encountered in
dealing with 'the English question' against the backdrop of the
diminishing hold of established ideas of British government and
national identity in the final years of the last century. And it
explores a range of factors -including insecurities generated by
economic change, Euroscepticism, and a growing sense of cultural
anxiety - which helped make the renewal of Englishness appealing
and imperative, prior to the introduction of devolution by the
first Blair government, a policy which also gave this process a
further impetus. The book therefore provides a powerful challenge
to the two established orthodoxies in this area. These either
maintain that the English are dispositionally unable to assert
their own nationhood outside the framework of the British state, or
point to the supposed resurgence of a resentful and reactive sense
of English nationalism. This volume instead demonstrates that a
renewed, resonant and internally divided sense of English
nationhood is apparent across the lines of class, geography, age,
and ethnicity. And it identifies several distinct strands of
national identity that have emerged in this period, contrasting the
appearance of populist and resentful forms of English nationalism
with an embedded and deeply rooted sense of conservative
Englishness and attempts to reconstruct a more liberal and civic
idea of a multicultural England. This volume also includes a
wide-ranging analysis of the culturally rooted revival of
Englishness, drawing out the political dimensions and implications
of this re-emerging form of national consciousness.
In the late 1950s Stuart Hall, Edward Thompson and Raymond
Williams, among others, came together as part of a promising new
political formulation, the New Left. The six years of the group's
formal existence represents one of the richest and most exciting
periods in the intellectual history of the left in Britain. This
short period saw the beginning of many future theoretical
developments in radical politics, and the founder members of the
New Left are now associated with ground-breaking work in history,
culture and politics. Michael Kenny documents and analyses the
debates of the New Left, showing how their preoccupations prefigure
many contemporary concerns: the broadening of the previously narrow
definition of politics, an engagement with popular culture, the
exploration of a Gramscian politics, and the attempt to open a
'third space' between a defunct Marxism-Leninism and an
intellectually barren labourist tradition.
Political Ideologies: A Reader and Guide provides an extensive
collection of extracts from the texts of major intellectuals,
politicians, and writers within some of the most important
ideological traditions in modern politics, which are interspersed
with editorial commentaries. These offer a general historical
introduction to each thinker and the particular text, highlight key
thematic features of the passages and alert the reader to
significant overlaps and points of difference between different
authors within and across different ideological traditions. This is
the first volume to provide such an extensive range of texts and to
cover both established and newer political ideologies. The volume
illustrates the complex evolution of ideological traditions in
various national settings and highlights how these developed
through rival interpretations of some of the key concepts of modern
political discourse.
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