Losing the Discursive Battle but Winning the Ideological War: Who Holds Thatcherite Values Now?
| Author | Stephen Farrall,Emily Gray,Phil Mike Jones,Colin Hay |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720986701 |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720986701
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(3) 757 –779
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720986701
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Losing the Discursive Battle
but Winning the Ideological
War: Who Holds Thatcherite
Values Now?
Stephen Farrall1, Emily Gray1,
Phil Mike Jones1 and Colin Hay2
Abstract
In what ways, if at all, do past ideologies shape the values of subsequent generations of citizens? Are
public attitudes in one period shaped by the discourses and constructions of an earlier generation
of political leaders? Using Thatcherism – one variant of the political New Right of the 1980s
– as the object of our enquiries, this article explores the extent to which an attitudinal legacy
is detectable among the citizens of the UK some 40 years after Margaret Thatcher first became
Prime Minister. Our article, drawing on survey data collected in early 2019 (n = 5781), finds that
younger generations express and seemingly embrace key tenets of her and her governments’
philosophies. Yet at the same time, they are keen to describe her government’s policies as having
‘gone too far’. Our contribution throws further light on the complex and often covert character of
attitudinal legacies. One reading of the data suggests that younger generations do not attribute the
broadly Thatcherite values that they hold to Thatcher or Thatcherism since they were socialised
politically after such values had become normalised.
Keywords
Thatcherism, public attitudes, political generations, new right, political legacies
Accepted: 15 December 2020
Past Studies of Thatcherite Values: What Do We Know?
One of the questions to which political scientists devoted considerable attention during
the period from the late 1980s was the extent to which the governments led by Margaret
Thatcher contributed to a ‘Thatcherite’ attitudinal shift. In this article, we reassess the
relationship between ‘Thatcherism’ as an ideology and the values and attitudes on key
topics and issues held by members of the British public in the twenty-first century. We
1College of Business, Law and the Social Sciences, University of Derby, Derby, UK
2Sciences Po, Centre d’etudes europennes et de politique comparee, Paris, France
Corresponding author:
Stephen Farrall, University of Derby, Derby, DE1 1DZ, UK.
Email: s.farrall@derby.ac.uk
986701PSX0010.1177/0032321720986701Political StudiesFarrall et al.
research-article2021
Article
758 Political Studies 70(3)
start by discussing the attitudes which have come to represent ‘Thatcherism’, before
addressing how dominant ideologies of the past continue to resonate in subsequent dec-
ades. We then explore the impact of Thatcherism on citizens’ attitudes, noting that as time
has passed and as better data sets have become available, so the evidence for a Thatcherite
attitudinal legacy has mounted. This fresh data suggests that the answer to the question,
‘Did Thatcher alter attitudes?’ is time-variant – in all likelihood because it is linked to
questions of political socialisation exhibiting a cohort-like temporality (Grasso et al.,
2019a, 2019b). The second half of the article explores which social groups hold what may
be thought of as ‘Thatcherite’ attitudes, values and desires 40 years after she was first
elected.1 This section outlines the methodology we deploy and presents the core findings.
Above all, it discusses the implications of the reputational legacies we reveal for our
understanding of Thatcherism in the 2020s. We conclude with a broader reflection of the
ways in which political leadership can, in some cases, shape popular attitudes decades
later (see also Farrall et al., 2020c).
We hold the view that Thatcherism remains important given its enduring policy legacy
and the profound influence of the changes it initiated on UK society, institutions (social,
economic and political), political discourse and voting patterns (Albertson and Stepney,
2019). Thatcher’s legacies would appear to be stubborn, emotive and agenda-setting in
both the normative and discursive senses. Moreover, the policies and normative positions
attributed to her and her governments on a series of key decisions are frequently invoked
in popular and media debates. Unlike, arguably, earlier or more recent Prime Ministers,
Thatcher still haunts contemporary British politics, lying behind many of the events of the
years since she left office in 1990.
This article seeks to both review and reassess what is known about Thatcherite atti-
tudes. Above all, we seek to establish whether and to what extent the British electorate can
be seen to have become Thatcherite over time (‘Past Studies of Thatcherite Values: What
Do We Know?’ section). Our review of the literature (‘How and Why Might Past Ideologies
Shape Subsequent Attitudes?’ section) suggests that the initial dismissal of Thatcher’s
influence has, over time, and as data sets and analyses have become more sophisticated,
increasingly been questioned. On the basis of this review, we turn to questions of method-
ology, describing the survey we commissioned to mark the 40th anniversary of Thatcher’s
first general election victory which was undertaken in early 2019 (‘Measuring, Exploring
and Assessing Thatcherism in 2019’ section). We then present the findings from this sur-
vey, showing in the process that Thatcherite values have become deeply embedded in
British value structures (‘Regression Modelling’ section). In ‘Reputational Legacies?’ sec-
tion, we deal with reputational legacies, before providing a discussion and conclusion in
‘Discussion and Conclusions’ section. Our contribution to these previous studies is to
explore the extent to which British citizens have come to hold aspirations and desires con-
sistent with key elements of a Thatcherite instinct or disposition.
What Are Thatcherite Attitudes?
Before one can establish whether or not Thatcherism changed social attitudes, one has to
establish why (in and through what mechanisms) this political doctrine may have served
to change social attitudes. Next, one has to have some idea about the sorts of attitudes
which it may have changed, and the direction of these changes. One also has to establish
some sort of temporal dimension too; the attitudes of adults do not change easily. Let us
consider each of these in turn.
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