Book Notes
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00244 |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Book Notes |
Book Notes
British Politics
Ian Adams, Ideology and Politics in Britain Today (Manchester, Manchester University
Press, 1998), ix 226 pp., £40.00 ISBN 0 7190 5055 3, £12.99 pbk ISBN 0 7190 5056 1.
This book provides an engaging and valuable introduction to ideology and politics in Britain. The
discussion focuses primarily on three major ideologies, namely, liberalism, conservatism, and
socialism. Adams traces the genesis and development of each, relating key ideas to prominent
®gures, salient texts, and pertinent events. He unpacks important debates within each ideology, and
explores similarities and dierences between competing ideologies. These themes are developed
usefully with reference to policy examples. Two fundamental claims permeate much of the analysis.
First, because British parliamentary politics historically evolved within a dominant liberal demo-
cratic framework, contemporarymainstream ideologies like liberalism, conservatism, and socialism
are best understood as variations of liberal democraticvalues. Second, economic thinking generally
provides the clearest expressions of similarity and dierence between and within mainstream
ideologies. The author also broadens the study to consider the impactof nationalism and environ-
mentalism, extremes like fascism and Trotskyism, and non-extreme fringe activism including
feminist and gay movements. Adams concludes with an interesting, but regrettablybrief, discussion
of postmodern society and politics. He draws on Baudrillard and Lyotard to suggest that future
directions in politics and ideology inevitably depend upon interactions between contemporary
socio-political pressures like globalization, cultural fragmentation, individualism, and community.
DAVID O'BRIEN
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Roy Church and Quentin Outram, Strikes and Solidarity: Coal®eld Con¯ict in Britain,
1889±1966 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998), xx 314 pp., £45.00
ISBN 0 521 55460 8.
Writing a history of strikes in the coal®elds is a mammoth task. Coal miners' unions, commonly
considered the most militant in twentieth century Britain, have attracted left wing historians like
waspsto a honeypot, eager to reveal the sources of militancy or to analyse its revolutionarypotential.
The authors of this volume use established historical and sociological studies, adding the analysisof
unpublished statistical material on the location and duration of strikes in the coal industry to
determine the merits of the industry's reputation. They®nd the case not proven; patchy and partial
evidence of some militancy in some coal®elds in some periods oers a more balanced appraisal than
the general conclusions drawn from studies of a strike-prone region or years of marked industrial
unrest. Variation is not a simple consequence of structural features, but is also explained by the
competence of local management and by local politics, which trends persist after nationalization. A
shame that more attention was not dedicatedto rising levels of strike action in the 1940s and 1950s,
nor to the impact of unemployment and full employment on levels of militancy.Nonetheless, this is
an impressive and exhaustive study by two scholars with established reputations in this ®eld.
NOEL WHITESIDE
University of Warwick
Andrew Denham and Mark Garnett, British Think-tanks and the Climate of Opinion
(London, UCL Press [distributed by Taylor and Francis], 1998), vii222 pp.,
£12.95 pbk ISBN 1 85728 497 6.
The rise to prominence of a plethora of think-tanks in Britain since the 1970s raises a number of
interesting questions for political scientists. The most obvious concerns the extent to which these
#Political Studies Association 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 CowleyRoad, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Political Studies (1999), XLVII, 981±1040
bodies have directly in¯uenced Britain's political elites and shaped policy making during the last
two decades, or whether their primary role has been that of legitimizing policies already agreed
upon. There is also the question of whether the activities of think tanks in the 1990s re¯ect a post-
Thatcherite `end of ideology', or whether they are actuallysustaining a battle for ideas between Left
and Right. Furthermore, it remains a fascinating paradox that the Conservative Party, having
traditionally denounced ideologies and intellectualism in favour of pragmatism and empiricism,
should have become so closely associated with a number of think-tanks under Margaret Thatcher's
leadership. Denham and Garnett answer these questions and conundrums by examining the
development and activities of several key think-tanks, most notably the IEA, Centre for Policy
Studies, and Adam Smith Institute. This is a thoroughly interesting and informative text, and one
which will hopefully go to a second edition in a few years time so that new chapters can be added on
think-tanks associated with New Labour, such as IPPR and Demos.
PETER DOREY
Cardi University
Paul Hainsworth (ed., foreword by Glyn Ford MEP), Divided Society: Ethnic Minorities
and Racism in Northern Ireland (London, Pluto, 1998), xiv 270 pp., £45.00 ISBN
0 7453 1196 2, £14.99 pbk ISBN 0 7453 1195 4.
This collection is a useful examination of the position of ethnic minorities in Northern Ireland. It
challenges the view thatthe domination of Ulster politics by religious sectarianism leaves little space
for anti-black racism.Even before the advent of small numbers of New Commonwealth immigrants
the nomadic community of travellers or gypsies had been victims of various forms of racial
prejudice. Ulster however escaped much of the politics of race that developed in Britain since the
late 1960s and it was only in 1997, in the last days of the Conservative government, that the Race
Relations (Northern Ireland) Order was passed. RobbieMcVeigh in an illuminating chapter argues
that racism in Northern Ireland draws on a variety of traditions such a religious imperialism,
sectarianism and fascism that ensures an overlap with British racism as well as some additional
de®ning characteristics. Furtherchapters look at racism in the police, health care, the media as well
as some useful portraits of the Chinese, Indian, Jewish and Pakistani communities. In addition a
chapter by Bruce Dickson and Mark Bell examines the evolution of international law on the
treatment of minorities. This is a valuable contribution to the recent literature on ethnic minority
issues in Britain and is of use to scholars both of race and ethnicity as well as Northern Ireland
politics.
PAUL B. RICH
University of Cambridge
David Judge, Representation: Theory and Practice in Britain (London, Routledge, 1999),
ix 230 pp., £17.99 pbk ISBN 0 415 08197 1.
Having laid bare the pretentions of parliamentary sovereignty in his The Parliamentary State, David
Judge, in this work, strips away the theoretical and institutional masks that conceal the limitations
of representative democracy. The book surveys theories of democracy and representation; the
representation of minority interests; the persistent hold of Burkean `trusteeship' views of repre-
sentation (particularly well illustrated from parliamentary debates); tackles the signi®cance for
party representation of disputes and changes in both major parties; the representation of `interests'
at Westminster; theories of interest representation including those identifying `post-parliamentary
governance'; the centrality of territory to UKrepresentative democracy; and multi-level representa-
tion. Finally, the book addresses the implications of New Labour's package of constitutional
reforms and use of referendums, its challenges to the practiceof representative democracy, but not,
as the author notes, to the principle. In these days of fastfood textbooks, it is a pleasant shock to
come across a student text that: a. is clearly the result of years of study and re¯ection; b. oers a
serious summary of the theoretical literature; c. is informed by a wealth of illustrative material; d. is
carefully structured but contains not a single box diagram, bullet point list, or chart; and e.
addresses not just current, but also foreseeable questions. Add to these qualities the author's
compelling scepticism about the character of British democracy ± and you have a textbook that
982 Book Notes
#Political Studies Association, 1999
oers a rich but digestible dinner of many ®ne courses. It makes a formidable case for the author's
concluding contention that students of British politics need an understanding of the theory and
practice of representation ± and it makes a formidable contribution to supplying that under-
standing.
STEVE LUDLAM
University of Sheeld
Ruth Levitas, The Inclusive Society? Social Exclusion and New Labour (Basingstoke,
Macmillan, 1998), xi 223 pp., £42.50 ISBN 0 333 73086 0, £15.99pbk ISBN
0 333 73087 9.
The term `social exclusion' has become increasingly important in discussions of poverty and
inequality in the 1990s so a book which sets out to unravel the morass of competing claims and
assertions in this area is to be welcomed. The ®rst sections of the book explore some of the key
ideologies in¯uencing current government policy. The work of writers such as Gray, Etzioni and
Hutton are considered in considerable detail. There then follows a pertinent critique of recent
interventions aimed at tackling social exclusion. Levitasargues that there are at least three discern-
ible discourses that can be identi®ed within the rubric of government policy in this area. These are: a
redistributionist discourse whose primary concern is poverty; a moral underclass discourse which
focus on fecklessness; and a social integrationist discourse which upholds the value of paid work.
Levitas uses these three discursive categories as an analytical framework to criticize current policy.
Her conclusion is that though policies, at a rhetorical level, appear to meet the concerns of the
poverty lobby; in practicemost of the recent interventions by the Government continue to endorse a
form of neo-liberalism at the expense of structural modes of intervention.Overall this is a valuable
book which successfully integrates empirical research and contemporarysocial theory.
KEITH JACOBS
University of Westminster
David Miller, Rethinking Northern Ireland: Culture, Ideology and Colonialism (London,
Longman, 1998), xxiii 317 pp., £14.99 pbk ISBN 0 582 30287 0.
This collection brings together many of the leading commentators on Northern Ireland. It aims to
provide a critique of dominant popular, academic and political wisdom on Ireland and all the
contributors write from a perspective broadlysympathetic to nationalism. One of its main strengths
is the breadth of coverage, which encompasses chapters on the history and politics and economics
of the con¯ict, and a substantial section on culture in Northern Ireland. Written during the
negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement, the book provides a timely contribution to
political debate and will be valuable to anyone interested in Northern Ireland. Liam O'Dowd
questions whether the `new Unionism' promoted by some politicians and academics in response to
the crisis in traditional Unionism represents anything more than a secular and articulateversion of
old Unionism. Bill Rolston challenges another idea vigorously promoted in ocial circles, multi-
culturalism and `parity of esteem' between the `two traditions'. He argues that reducing these
`traditions' to cultural manifestationsdepoliticizes them and serves the states's agenda of incorpora-
tion of opposition. This theme is taken up by Desmond Bell in relationto the heritage industry and
by Ronan Bennett in relation to mainstream culture. Several contributions point to new forms of
politics: Carol Coulter writes of feminism which challenges the hegemony of the sectarian divide in
policy and politics, while James Anderson argues for a rethinking of politics within a transnational
context.
ROSEMARY SALES
Middlesex University
David Monaghan, The Falklands War: Myth and Countermyth (Basingstoke,
Macmillan, 1998), xviii 208 pp., £42.50 ISBN 0 333 65581 8.
A slightly curious book for the student of politics, but a rewarding read nonetheless. Monaghan, a
Professor of English at a Canadian University, deploys the methodology of literary criticism to
Book Notes 983
#Political Studies Association, 1999
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