Book Notes
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.00170 |
| Subject Matter | Book Notes |
Book Notes
British Politics
Peter Barberis (ed.), The Civil Service in an Era of Change (Aldershot, Dartmouth,
1997), x 181 pp., £39.50 ISBN 1 85521 805 4.
This text provides an analysis of changes to the British civil service over the last twenty years.
Primarily based on a 1995 JUC/PAC conference, it incorporates chapters by specialist writers
including Barry O'Toole, Richard Chapman and Andrew Massey. Topics covered include the Next
Steps programme, democratic accountability, standards of propriety and conduct in the public life
and the Citizen's Charter. This analysis takes account of contemporary debates about the Nolan
and Scott inquiries and investigations by various Parliamentary Select Committees. Several of the
chapters also contain substantial historical or theoretical elements. For example, Barberis provides
an analysis of the evolution of ideas about the notion of ministerial responsibility since the 1830s.
Similarly, Massey, in the section on agencies, O'Toole, writing about the notion of public duty, and
McEldowney, in the chapter about public interest immunity, place the discussion of administrative
changes and contemporary events in a theoretical and de®nitional context. The introductory and
concluding chapters tie the various strands together, identify common themes and place the
discussion about British public administration in the context of wider debate about the role of
central bureaucracy in the modern state.
MICHAEL COLE
University of Glamorgan
Alan Campbell, Nina Fishman and David Howell, Miners, Unions and Politics, 1910±
1947 (Aldershot, Scolar, 1996), xii 307 pp., £40.00 ISBN 1 85928 269 5.
This work is composed of essays which analyse the political heterogeneity of mining unionism and
the miners' relationships with the Labour Party. The essay which deserves most attention is the
psephological overview of electoral politics in the coal®elds by Duncan Tanner. Aided by many
detailed calculations, Tanner is able to point out a number of indisputable facts. Two examples are
that `Coal®eld constituencies returned nearly 60% of Labour's MPs in 1918 and were responsible
for Labour becoming the ocial party of opposition after the election' and the fact that mining
support `enabled it to survive as a major political force in 1931'. Thus whilst the MFGB did not
aliate to Labour until 1909, the impact of the miners on Labour's long term fortunes was crucial;
it should come as no surprise, therefore, that the coal industry was one of the ®rst enterprises to be
nationalized by the 1945 Labour Government. There has always been a constant demand for works
on Labour and Trade Union history and this publication will be particularly useful to students, and
others, who wish to read a good introductory work before embarking upon more detailed studies ±
be they in the ®eld of politics or history.
MIKE SQUIRES
University of Sheeld
Patrick Dunleavy, Andrew Gamble, Ian Holliday and Gillian Peele (eds), Developments
in British Politics 5 (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1997), xiii 414 pp., £42.50 ISBN
0 333 67775 7, £13.99 pbk ISBN 0 333 67776 5.
This series goes from strength to strength, ®lling the interstices in and between textbooks. It relies
on a well-tried formula of providing up-to-date information and comment, judiciously mixing key
aspects of British politics with interesting excursions into less-frequented areas. This edition's
particular strength is its coverage, retrospective and prospective, of the 1997 election and much that
has thus far ¯owed from it. Patrick Dunleavy provides an excellent introductory survey and Andrew
# Political Studies Association 1998. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Book Notes
815
Gamble an equally excellent and thought-provoking concluding chapter. In between are well written
and carefully edited chapters on, among others, Britain's international role, the 1997 election,
prospective constitutional change, central government, local government, economic policy, social
policy, and the BSE crisis. It is also good to see Europe not just being treated as a separate theme,
but permeating many of the chapters, as in Philip Norton's discussion of the European Parliament
in his chapter on parliamentary scrutiny. Of course, it is always possible to quibble over what might
have been covered, but this does not detract from the essential quality of what, like its predecessors,
is a very informative and stimulating volume, with an excellent bibliography and guides to further
reading.
MICHAEL RUSH
University of Exeter
Martin Francis, Ideas and Policies under Labour, 1945±1951 (Manchester, Manchester
University Press, 1997), x 269 pp., £40.00 ISBN 0 7190 4833 8.
This is a valuable addition to the literature on the post-war Labour Government, presenting the
ideas underlying the public administration of the period. The shift from physical planning to
demand management, ®scal policy, social and educational policy are all expressed in the light of
ideas and debate. Martin Francis looks behind the policy processes to ideas and debates, and the
resulting emphasis on theory and argument is a needed corrective to the usual narrow approach to
public administration and political activity. Unfortunately, Francis does not cover the vital areas of
foreign policy, or imperial policy, or the impact of anti-Communism on Labour's ideological life.
The furious discussions on the Cold War, the independence of India and the wars in Korea and
Malaya are absent. He fails to establish any direction of in¯uence from ideas to policy. There is an
interesting and controversial chapter on gender, but no mention of Rita Hinden. The criticism is
quali®ed, it must be stressed, but the book falls between the two stools of political theory and public
administration. Despite his claims to the contrary, he fails to show any sea-change in Labour
thinking from the corporate socialism formulated in the thirties ± there is much intellectual activity,
but little at the fundamental level of political thought. The author talks, rightly, of the need to
overcome the dichotomy between political theory and action, but fails to recognize that the history
of political thought cannot be reduced to an interesting aspect of the history of public admin-
istration; it has a logic and chronology of its own, related to action in a complex manner.
GEOFFREY FOOTE
University of Teesside
Donald W. Jackson, The United Kingdom Confronts the European Convention on Human
Rights (Florida, University Press of Florida, 1997), x 214 pp., $49.95 ISBN
0 8130 1487 5.
Jackson's book embarks on an inquiry into the United Kingdom's experience of the European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This is a timely publication as the United Kingdom
prepares to undertake the large project of incorporating the ECHR into domestic law. The United
Kingdom has already an unenviable track record ± forty-one violations to its name since the Con-
vention was signed. Jackson sets out to examine four topics that fall within the remit of the ECHR,
namely: the prevention of terrorism, the rights of prisoners, immigration and nationality, and
freedom of expression. The book provides a serious and well informed analysis of the four topics.
Jackson comes to some important conclusions. First, (at p. 163): `key failings revealed by the
various violations by the United Kingdom of the ECHR are likely to be found in the largely
unreviewable discretion of its executive ocials.' Secondly, (at p. 172): doubts raised by J. A. G.
Grith in The Politics of the Judiciary (1991) about the future role of the United Kingdom
judiciary, given their track record in the ®eld of civil liberties, remain unresolved. The way ahead
appears uncertain. Only time will tell, once the ECHR is incorporated and then we may discover
how the judiciary respond to the added pressure and publicity their new role will inevitably bring.
Will matters improve once incorporation is given eect? In the four areas studied it is likely that
# Political Studies Association, 1998
816
Book Notes
incorporation will make a substantial dierence. But are the solutions to the human rights challenge
in day to day life to be found in an added juridical tier of decision making?
JOHN F. McELDOWNEY
University of Warwick
Moshe Maor, Political Parties and Party Systems: Comparative Approaches and the
British Experience (London, Routledge, 1997), x 279 pp., £45.00 ISBN
0 415 08284 6, £14.99 pbk ISBN 0 415 08285 4.
Maor's book comprehensively reviews a number of theoretical analyses of parties and party systems,
and provides an empirical assessment of these dierent approaches based on the British case. This is
a clearly structured, cogently argued account of party formation and development, party organiza-
tion, power struggles within parties, and competition between parties. Maor's central theme is that
to understand party behaviour `the intra-party arena is the key'. Indeed, the strength of the book
lies in this examination of internal party dynamics and their impact on the party's relationship with
others. For example, Maor examines the link between intra-party politics and coalition bargaining
and argues that a decentralized party is in fact more able to resolve con¯icts during coalition than a
centralized one as there are more outlets for dissent in a decentralized party. In this book some
areas of party...
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