(Re)politicising ‘the governmental’: Resisting the Industrial Relations Act 1971
| Author | Sam Warner |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1369148119845336 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148119845336
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2019, Vol. 21(3) 541 –558
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148119845336
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(Re)politicising ‘the
governmental’:
Resisting the Industrial
Relations Act 1971
Sam Warner
Abstract
This article is an account of the failure of the Industrial Relations Act that places resistance at its
heart. This is achieved through application of the (de/re)politicisation framework, uncovering how
this attempt to depoliticise the reform of industrial relations was resisted and re-politicisation
achieved. The article argues that (re)politicisation is best understood through an analysis of informal
processes of struggle involving non-governmental actors. By adopting a critical political economy
perspective informed by Open Marxism, the so-called state-centrism of the governmental level
is eschewed. New archival evidence demonstrates the importance of not only addressing the
imposition of this governing strategy, but also the active role of organised labour when engaged
in resistance to it. Thus, this article steps ‘beyond the governmental’ to argue that adequate
conceptualisation of resistance at the societal level is a necessary part of understanding how
depoliticised governing is shaped, imposed, transformed and potentially undermined.
Keywords
British politics, depoliticisation, industrial relations, Open Marxism, politicisation, resistance
Introduction
The (de/re)politicisation framework has a long association with an analysis of governing,
notably the placing at one remove the political character of decision-making through arm’s-
length strategies (Burnham, 2001b). This framework has become increasingly prevalent
across a broad range of political science literatures, progressing relatively quickly to a ‘sec-
ond wave’ (Hay, 2014). While the differences between these two ‘waves’ can be overstated
(Foster et al., 2014), both make significant individual contributions to our understanding of
depoliticisation, pushing the analysis into new societal and discursive empirical terrain
(Wood and Flinders, 2014). This work has produced a body of scholarship that is both con-
ceptually rich and capable of facilitating a ‘multilevel’ research agenda (Wood, 2016b).
University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Corresponding author:
Sam Warner, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
Email: S.J.L.Warner@bham.ac.uk
845336BPI0010.1177/1369148119845336The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsWarner
research-article2019
Original Article
542 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 21(3)
Despite these achievements, a tension exists between those who present depoliticisation
as a governing strategy or form of statecraft (Burnham, 2014; Flinders and Buller, 2006;
Kettell, 2004; Rogers, 2009) and advocates of an expansive notion of the term (Wood and
Flinders, 2014). Addressing this contention directly, Buller et al. (2019) argue that statecraft
approaches produce elite-driven analyses, echoing earlier suggestions that the resulting
conclusions are ‘state-centric’ (Jenkins, 2011) and endorse a ‘narrow’ view of politics
(Beveridge, 2017). More broadly, Huke et al. (2015) highlight a tendency within critical
political economy literatures to give primacy to relations of domination, failing to account
for the disruptive potential of bottom-up strategies. The danger, as Bailey et al. (2017: 9)
note, is that this neglect reifies relations of domination, making subsequent challenge more
difficult. Given the ubiquity of a critical normative agenda within the depoliticisation litera-
ture (Wood, 2016b), more needs to be done to understand the conceptual and practical
implications of challenging taken-for-granted approaches to governing. However, despite
strides forward in developing our understanding of the imposition of depoliticised govern-
ing, a gap in the literature remains regarding resistance to it.
Recently, scholars have sought to address this omission (Buller et al., 2019). To con-
tribute to this conversation, the Industrial Relations Act 1971 offers an excellent site of
analysis from which to study resistance to depoliticisation. As one of many policies
designed to limit the impact of trade union power on the profitability of British capital
(Rogers, 2014: 293), the Act represents the culmination of years of detailed policy analy-
sis regarding the trade union ‘problem’ in industrial relations (Taylor, 1982). The 1960s
saw a dramatic increase in unofficial strike activity, exceeding 10 million days lost in each
of the 3 years preceding the 1970 General Election, as disputes over incomes policy and
industrial relations reform reached a climax (Durcan et al., 1983; Wigham, 1976: 142).
The core tenets of the tradition of voluntarism – characterised by relative state absence
from collective bargaining practices (see Flanders, 1974) – were questioned by actors
across the political spectrum (see Conservative Political Centre (CPC), 1968; Her
Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO), 1969). Trade union power was presented as decen-
tralised to the workplace (Taylor, 1982: 198). In essence, an informality had crept into
collective bargaining, catalysing the growth of a militant shop floor beyond the control of
employers, trade union leaders and the state.
Despite a large body of literature discussing this Act (e.g. Crouch, 1977; Holmes, 1997;
Moran, 1977; Taylor, 1996; Weekes et al., 1975), no account draws on the primary docu-
ments now released at The National Archives (TNA). Moreover, while scholars have pre-
sented the Act either explicitly (Burnham, 2006a; Crouch, 1979) or implicitly (Clarke, 1988;
Dorfman, 1983) as a depoliticised governing strategy – an attempt to externalise accountabil-
ity for this problematic policy area – existing accounts tend to focus on the numerous strate-
gic failings of elites and the questionable appropriateness of the law in industrial relations
reform. This article contends that this attempt at depoliticised governing was in fact under-
mined by informal non-governmental political actors engaged in resistance to it. This per-
spective compliments an understanding of state management as contingent and informed by
the indeterminable and conflict-ridden nature of the reproduction of capitalist social relations
(Burnham, 2017). Crucially, the analysis steps ‘beyond the governmental’ (Wood and
Flinders, 2014) in that it advocates a notion of (re)politicisation that encapsulates the ever-
present and on-going process of political engagement and contestation at the societal level. It
is this process that informs the act of depoliticisation by state managers.
To make this ‘step’, the article adopts a critical political economy perspective informed
by Open Marxism. Despite this perspective’s primary association with theorising the state
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