Sacred cows and common sense : the symbolic statecraft and political culture of the British Labour Party
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Sacred cows and common sense : the symbolic statecraft and political culture of the British Labour Party
Ashgate, c1999
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Note
Includes bibliography (p. 252-272) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This text attempts to fuse a realist conception of statecraft, an "interpretavist" interest in symbols and a predictive comparative model of the interaction between ideology and organization. Using Labour's postwar welfare policy, it shows that we need to break down distinctions between the "symbolic" and the "substantial" in politics, that "cultural theory" has potential as a way of understanding party political culture, and that welfare policy has played a crucial but self-defeating role in Labour's efforts to manage itself, win hearts and minds and govern competently. It concludes by arguing that New Labour's attempts to rethink welfare is largely rhetorical if one recalls what Labour did in office rather than promised in opposition. Rather than a serious attempt to confront social realities, the rethink represents a continuation of past practice and a way of signalling the government's "soundnesss" to the market.
Table of Contents
- Of frying pans and fires, 1967
- welfare as weapon - the symbolic politics of NHS charges, 1951
- a two-edged sword - the symbolic politics of NHS charges, 1964-7
- "the ritual slaughter of a sacred cow"
- the pseudo-event spins out of control
- the politics of power and the politics of support
- conclusion.
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